Ask Gynomite ponders intimacy
This April, I’m going to be facilitating what I hope to be the first of several lady conversations/workshops at Word Bookstore in Brooklyn! The series is called LoveSmarts, and this first one is all about exploring the horrible ideas that movies have taught us about love.
It’s going to be on Sunday, April 19th from 3-4ish, and if you’re interested in coming, please RSVP by emailing brooklynlovesmarts@gmail.com!! I’ll announce more details as it comes closer, but for now, there will be refreshments and fun times, and there will not be a person lecturing you. Here’s a taste:
How do we know when we’re being open in a relationship? We seem to know what makes a relationship a friendship, and what makes a relationship sexual, but what makes a relationship intimate? In a movie like Wedding Crashers, we laugh at Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as they make up fake sob stories to hook women in. On Rock of Love Bus, a girl who’s father just died pulls Bret Michaels aside to tell him about it, and then gushes at how close she feels to him.
So we go on dates, we tell guys about our parents’ divorce, about our fear of death, guys tell us about their sisters with diseases, and we think “BAM! This is really sharing!” So then if things don’t work out after that first date, we are crushed, because we feel as if we gave something of ourselves and had it rejected. But did we?
Intimacy is often about revealing a part of yourself that could make you seem less… perfect. Less together. It’s more than just a collection of facts, it’s about your specific reaction to those facts. While telling someone that your parents divorced is information about you, does it include the ickier, less concrete parts of it? Like how you were secretly happy that you got so much attention from both parents? No! You would never tell someone you just met that! And yet, that’s intimacy.
Not only have we not seen examples of it in popular culture, but it’s fucking hard. And it SHOULD be done slowly.
Ask Gynomite! « Gynomite! said,
March 14, 2010 at 6:26 pm
[...] have a bit of a thing about the notion that in relationships, telling someone about your past means that you’re [...]