Bad Painter had a great question a few months ago:
What exactly is intimacy? What does that look like in a Redpill context?
I used to think I knew what intimacy was, in a blue pill way at least. And I have come the realization that intimacy is either not worth shit, or I simply don’t get it. What I do know is that those times were I was informed intimacy had been achieved were not correlated with my feeling comfortable, more secure or less anxious rather it was the opposite.
This is a good question.
In my writing I use the term ‘intimacy’ as a sort of confirmation of a woman’s genuine interest, but I don’t think I’ve ever really defined it.
Strictly from a PUAs sense I would say intimacy is a woman’s sexual availability – in no uncertain terms it’s confirmation of her intimate interest and acceptance of you, but then again, in my own sexual past I’ve had more than one fuck-buddy with whom I really didn’t share any real intimacy with.
In those instances I was (at least perceived) a point or so above these women’s SMV and enjoyed all the Alpha benefits that arrangement afforded me, but beyond the sexual, I had no real interest in any kind of intimacy, shared or not.
In a sense, I actually had a much deeper intimacy with the three fuck-buddies I would bang in my 20’s than the women with whom I’d invested myself with in more “meaningful” relationships. You see, with my fuck-buddies all pretense of caring about what they thought of me personally (and certainly from a long-term investment) was simply a non-issue. I was free to express as much or as little of myself as I wanted because I wasn’t actively qualifying for their future investment in me. My Frame was dominant from the outset – sex-on-call is a pretty strong indicator of dominant Frame.
When I was writing the final edits of the Wait For It? post for the Rational Male book I felt that I needed to add a caveat towards the end of that section to account for a sense of intimacy for red pill men, who by conviction or otherwise, weren’t comfortable with actually fucking a woman to confirm genuine desire.
The point of that being that sex isn’t necessarily a determinant of intimacy, but rather the real desire for that person and the want for a mutual connection (to be consummated by sex) creates a condition of intimacy.
“When one considers that one must “game” a woman, even your wife, in order to keep her around, then it also means that you must always be operating at a “higher level” than her. It totally negates the whole notion of having a “soul-mate” and means that on many levels, a man will always be alone.”
That is probably the most important lesson a man can ever learn.
Intimacy with a woman is impossible if you have any interest in being her lover. If you are fine with being one of her grrrlfriends, and don’t mind the stupid messed up games women run on them, then you can share to your heart’s content – and will always be on the LJBF ladder.
The fundamental problem with today’s concept of marriage is that it seems both men and women expect their spouse to be all things to them – lover, confidante, helpmate, “soulmate”, co-housekeeper, and co-wage-earner. With so many role demands, it is inevitable that everyone will fail at some of them. That is why the old division of roles worked fairly well for most people – each could concentrate on a few things they were good at, and leave the rest to the other person.
Zenpriest outlines one of the fundamental differences between a forced egalitarian equalist approach to relationships with the natural complementary approach – intimacy between two autonomous, self-sufficient, self-reliant individuals is an impossibility in a sustained relationship. If there is a complete self-sustaining independence between both partners (an eqaulist idealized state) then there is no true purpose for intimacy between the two.
Buena Vista:
I have been the Alpha Fucks, the Beta Bucks, and I have been both at the same time. Civil marriage requires a man, as Deti notes by inverse example, to commit to permanent Game. Permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy. This is the reality of the Plan B Nice Guy in marriage.
Eon:
It seems that intimacy, like love, is only possible if you are greater than (and thus truly independent of) the object of your love.
Softek:
In my opinion, intimacy is unchanged by the red pill. It’s the ideas and perceptions about it that are changed.
There’s a lot of dichotomy: sex, attention, and affection are all thought of as needs, but at the same time, if you’re not getting any of those things, the only way to get them is to take on the mindset of having an abundance of them.
And the guys who seem to have free access to all of those things have access to them because they don’t care if they have access to them or not.
I have to consider these perspectives of intimacy and cross reference it with the Cardinal Rule of Relationships:
In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least.
Although in an extreme this may seem manipulative to the uninitiated, this balance exists in every relationship irrespective of whether one party is intentionally using that power or not. In fact the most frustrated men you’ll ever meet are those whose women aren’t intentionally using the power his qualifying for her intimacy bestows upon her. He wonders why he can never merit her intimacy, while she, obliviously, wonders why he keeps trying to merit it.
As I illustrated in my fuck-buddies example, I was free to be as intimate as I chose with them because I literally had nothing to lose by doing so. And in that state of outcome indifference they wanted those occasions of intimacy far more than any woman I’d held in a high enough esteem to think I needed to qualify for their intimacy.
However, from a Red Pill perspective, I think the idea that “real” intimacy requires a constant effort of Game is in error. I’ve shared an enduring intimacy with Mrs. Tomassi for 19 years because Game and Red Pill awareness are simply part of who I am now. Game, if that’s even the right word for it, becomes effortless once you’ve made Red Pill truths an intrinsic part of who you are.
I still think Buena’s right though, permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy, but only if that Game is a constant act a man feels he needs to make believable to sustain his relationship. This then comes full circle to wanting to fulfill Blue Pill idealisms of intimacy with applied Red Pill awareness.
Learn this now, you will never achieve contentment or emotional fulfillment in a blue pill context with red pill awareness.
Most men’s concept of intimacy, like love, is shaped by his Blue Pill conditioning. The key to real intimacy is understanding how it can grow and be sustained in a Red Pill context. Chasing after an intimacy defined by the feminine suffers from the same misdirection of presuming women’s concept of love (opportunism) agrees with men’s (idealism).
So, weekend discussion questions:
How do you define intimacy?
Do you think men and women share the same concept and definition of intimacy?
Is ‘true’ intimacy only achievable when you have nothing to lose and nothing invested in a woman?
End Note: I’m well aware that intimacy has far broader inferences than just the relations between men and women, and I’m not attempting to pigeonhole the entire concept. There is intimacy with your family, your God, your pets, yourself and a variety of other things. However, even in those instances there is still a power dynamic at play.