Are You Capable of Intimacy? Take Your Intimacy Quiz!

Although intimacy is thought to be an inborn, innate drive and that all of us need intimacy in order to survive, some people are just better at giving and receiving intimacy than others are.

This is because, just as with your love map, your intimacy map develops as a result of your relational life experiences. In other words, who you are as a relational, intimate person is the result of every relationship you’ve ever had in your life—from your parents, to your friends in grade school, to your high school peers and buddies, to your college friends, to every positive and negative hook up or sexual relationship you’ve ever had.

Your intimacy map has been created over time. This is why intimacy doesn’t always come easily to everyone—and why it’s essential that your love partner knows as much about your relational background as you are comfortable sharing.

In fact, most of the time establishing and maintaining a close personal relationship with another person requires a lot of hard work. With this in mind, it’s important to remember that if you find yourself having to work at your relationship, it doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong or that you’ve chosen the wrong partner.

If you desire someone to openly, honestly, and completely share with you, you have to be willing to be open and honest about your needs and desires. This is the only way the seeds of intimacy will have a chance to flourish and thrive!

Do you get it?

Hectic lifestyles support and promote hectic relationships!

In the drive for “the car, the condo, and our version of success,” we are what Brad Pitt calls a society of desperate and lonely people. He refers to this feeling of meaninglessness as a sense of weakness, an inability, an incapacity.

An incapacity for what? Relating? Belonging? Emotionally bonding? Human connection?

As you take that step that brings you to reveal, share, and disclose your innermost personal thoughts and feelings, as you lower the barriers and allow someone to really know you, you begin the process of intimacy.

Are you capable of giving and receiving intimacy?  Take the quiz here to find out how emotionally intimate you are. Is your relationship intimacy solid, or do you have some trouble spots?

© Kelly J. Welch, Family Life Now (2/e). Boston: Pearson Education.

Photo Credit: Hamed Masoumi (flickr.com)