Trouble With Developing Intimacy

[Joe Zhou]

Hi,

I am having difficulty on developing intimacy with people.

According to my observation, I have never developed any intimate relationship in at least 7-8 years. By intimate I mean good friends, contact very often that sort of intimate. I never made friends that I can keep contacting, talk about stuff . Not with women, not with men neither.

The pattern of my communication with people in general was, once until I knew a bit of their background, general life, I could not find anything other than professional study subjects to talk with. I could talk with professional people about subjects in depth for very long, but that's like a consultation. I had no problem give other people consultation about subjects I know of neither. The result was: I get very good at finding someone to consult with, and people actively consult me about things, but I am missing a whole area of intimate friends.  

I do meet girls I wish to develop intimacy with, even just as good friends. I wished to be able to have conversation naturally with them. Then again, once I knew the basics of them, like what work do they do, their interests, etc, I just can't advance. I had exactly the same issue with males, it's just that I didn't care as much.

It seems like I had conflicted interests: On one hand, I deeply desire intimacy. On the other hand, I just don't care about people and what they do in their life. I felt bored out by people countless times. I felt the stuff they do are impermanent and eventually won't matter at all. So what if my friend gets married, have kids and tell me stuff about their kids? I just could not see how that matters. Even if I had shared interest with someone, such as a movie, we just never gets time to sit down discuss or even watch it together. Everyone is so damn busy with their own life, all the little issues such as work, appointment, kids... It seems I should just get busy on my life and shut up.

Then again, I see people who told me they were busy, just make up time for their other friends. So people are not so busy that they really have no time. I'm just not important enough to them for making up time. And I just stay at that level.

There must be some limitation in my mindset causing me unable to reach higher intimacy. I think this limitation has nothing to do with knowledge in professional field, which I just kept working hard on. But I simply can't figure out the limiting belief.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Joe Zhou

[Callum Milner]

Hi!

I had the same problem, and was able to completely eradicate it. I think I read somewhere that a possible reason for having a fear of intimacy is if your parents were not intimste around each other during childhood. In my experience my parents never kissed or hugged each other around me, so keep in mind this could be contributing to it.

 

 

But for me and bear in mind this may be different from you, the fear of intimacy came from a need for approval and a fear of rejection. I was scared of intimacy in both friendships and relationships, saying I love you to a partner would make me extremely uncomfortable, even doing things like texting my friends could be uncomfortable, so that I would not be my authentic self around anyone. Basically what I found was the fear of intimacy came from a need for approval, I was scared of being intimwte because the concept of being rejected in a close relationship was terrifying, because if they rejected me than they would be rejecting the REAL me, not some persona which scared the shit out of me. Because of they rejected who I truly was than who could like me? At least that's how I felt.

 

Basically what I found is that if you let go of your fear of dissaproval you will completely let go of this fear of intimacy. Leo has a video on not caring what other people think although I didn't find the affirmations to be that helpful. To solve this I recommend checking out some books from his book list on emotional mastery, particularly taming your gremlin and the Sedona method. To let go of wanting approval I personally used the Sedona method. 

 

Basically theres a chapter in the in the book with questions on wanting approval, for about three weeks I kept asking these questions, at first I found t difficult, but gradually I started to release. It's ridiculous how much affect not caring what others think can have on your life, now I can approach anyone to talk, I have no social anxiety LITERALLY none, even with things Le public speaking and obviously the fear of intamcy is gone. Even better is as a general rule the less you care what others think the more they like you, which is great but at the same time doesn't really matter because to me it's not IMPORTSNT that they like me anymore.

 

.

 

So basically.

Let go of wanting approval.

1: Read Sedona method

2: apply chapter on approval for 1-3 months or as long as it takes.

 

Its really pretty easy to fix this. But Sedona method requires persistence as normally at first it takes a while of trying with no results before it starts working.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by Callum Milner

[Franz]

Quote

I just don't care about people and what they do in their life.

There you go. You probably dont feel much empathy towards others, and they reflect that.

Try to care by fully beeing with someone, no judgements, give them some room inside your awareness.

Even try to "be them", just pretend you can read their minds, after a while you will get a feel for body language,

facial expressions, where they look and how they look at something etc. You will notice things about them that spark

your interest, and questions will pop up naturally. If they say something you dont care about, steer towards something else,

or give a really short response.

Look at another beeing without needing anything from it. Once you stop looking for something, you notice what they have

to offer themselfs.  

 

Edited November 25, 2016 by Franz

[aurum]

You're protecting yourself in some way. This stuff about others people's lives being unimportant is a smoke screen.

Look for fear. When do you feel afraid? That will give you a clue where to find the limiting belief.

[Joe Zhou]

Thank you guys for sharing your insights. I went back and talked with my close friend about this issue, here are some my own answers to the question.

1. Yes, my parents were never intimate, that did reflect on me.

2. Yes, I had an urge for approval.

3. I had many unresolved life issues without action plan. Because I felt my life was a mess, I was anxious about myself all the time. Seeing others doing okay only puts me in a more intense position.

4. I never tried to cultivate fun in life. I was so hardcore on solving problem, making progress, like fighting a war. The truth is only I see life as a war. Nobody else thinks this way, so I am always the intense one. I cannot relax others, and of course will drive away people who are more relaxed than I do. I attract more issues to be solved. Law of attraction.

 

the most practical solution is to cultivate intersts in life, write down action plans for unresolved issues, so that I get to relax.

It's not what I say that matters so much, but more of the overall feeling I give people. It really all depends on how I feel. 

If I am still at war with life, then there will only be comrades and enemies, win and lose. But if I can see life as a game and play it , there can be more fun. 

The limiting belief is that I am fighting for something. When I need to fight, I reflect lack, desperation, scaricity. 

Intimacy only happens when people relax and drop their masks. That's what I see.