Love or intimacy? Many of us, especially in this new generation, have started to recognize the importance of community. It’s necessary for us to have healthy relationships, whether that be through family, friends, romantic partners, or even a social club.
While it is important to have stillness, to be able to stand alone, to deeply love yourself and experience intimacy within yourself, that alone cannot be your only form of intimacy. There has to be other things pouring back into you beyond you.
And within that thought, it made me pause.
Is it love we are yearning for, or is it intimacy?
Because what I’ve started to realize is that a lack of intimacy can create the false belief that we are not loved.
Love Can Exist Without Proximity
Love, as a noun, is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. Which is why, for most of us, we naturally love our parents and or caregivers. No matter the ways they may have fallen short, that love doesn’t just disappear.
Studies show that by the time a child turns 18, they have already spent the majority of the time they will ever spend with their parents. Life happens. People move away, build careers, start families, and create lives of their own. And even if someone doesn’t see, talk to, or visit their parents regularly, that intense feeling of affection doesn’t go away.
The love remains. But the intimacy changes.
Intimacy, as a noun, is defined as close familiarity or friendship. Closeness. Which is why in romantic relationships, intimacy is always the focus. When a relationship is doing well, people say the intimacy is strong. When it’s struggling, the first suggestion is to “work on intimacy.”
But when you listen to people talk about loneliness, something feels off.
People say they want love.
To find love.
To be loved.
But what they’re actually describing is a lack of intimacy.
A lack of closeness.
A lack of familiarity.
And a lack of vulnerability.
Because the truth is, most of us are not lacking love.
We have people who love us. We have experienced love in some of its purest forms. But when love is not paired with intimacy, it can feel like it’s not there at all.
Where We Actually Feel The Gap
Think about it.
How many friendships do we have with people we deeply love, and they deeply love us, but we go weeks or even months without seeing them? Sometimes without even a call or a text.
How many cousins, aunties, or extended family members do we only connect with during holidays? And yet, we would never say they don’t love us or that we don’t love them.
But let a romantic partner go twelve hours without texting you…
Now it’s:
“If they wanted to, they would.”
“I’m not begging anyone to love me.”
And while I’m not saying you should be in a relationship where communication is lacking, that’s not the point. The point is, we expect intimacy in romance.
But we neglect it everywhere else.
Love or Intimacy: What You Might Actually Be Missing
So if you’re feeling alone, unloved, like you need to find love, or like no one loves you, it might not be love you’re lacking.
It might be intimacy. The absence of closeness, consistency, and intentional connection in your relationships. It might not even be a man, a woman, or romantic love that you need to feel less alone. It might be genuine, intimate relationships that give you the closeness of community.
So I’ll ask again.
