Intimacy, as related (or unrelated) to privacy and secret-keeping

[flexagon]

A poll, LJ friends, inspired by recent discussions with my husband. You can probably guess where I most naturally stand on the following issue, but I want to ask you... and, ironically, yes I was asked to write this post. So:

Thinking about intimacy -- imagining someone you feel really close to, a lover, a spouse, or someone imaginary who represents whatever your highest ideal of intimacy is -- is it important that there are private things only known to the two of you?

Another word for these private things is "secrets". So we could also say secrets -- is intimacy associated with secrets? -- although some people would talk about privacy or specialness instead.

One view: no, it's an awfully fragile intimacy that breaks just because someone else sees it.

Another view: yes, some things that happen between people are special and private, and the relationship benefits from having some things unshared.

[Poll #1936110]

Points to consider: what about a whole relationship that's kept secret? Ever had one of those friends who's only your friend in private but wouldn't talk to you at school? Or, as an adult, someone who was attracted to you, maybe even your lover, in private but not in public? How does that relate to your thoughts about intimacy in those relationships? Unrelated to whether some secrets are necessary, is it necessary to have some things publicly known, as well? Why are weddings most often a public event done in front of family and friends?

Comments

[melebeth]

Interesting. I feel basically the same way, but I said no because the fact that my partner and share things that others don't know isn't inherent to my conception of an intimate relationship. It happens, because we are intimate. We are not intimate because we have information that happens not to be shared.

Interestingly, I do feel as though my partner sharing certain (non-sexual) activities I think of as being OURS can impinge on my sense of our intimacy, but that's a different axis.

[rifmeister.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I basically totally agree. Maybe I answered wrong.

[melebeth]

Or possibly I did. I found it interesting that the same viewpoint led to opposite answer choices. This is why writing good multiple choice questions is so hard!

[coraline]

i think i was cueing off of flexagon's language around "does making any given secret non-exclusive decrease intimacy" rather than "does possessing a set of secrets imply/increase intimacy"?

i have very few deliberate secrets, but many more unshared inside jokes or exclusive stories, any given one of which i'd probably be happy to explain to someone outside that dyad, but which taken as a whole are part of the emotional intimacy of that dyad.

[triesticity.livejournal.com]

I feel this way, too - like there will be things between me and a partner that other people don't know, but it is a function of the amount of time my partner and I spend together, and isn't "inherent to my conception of an intimate relationship."

[coraline]

Thank you for writing out the thing i was thinking but too tired to type in yesterday.

same here

[elbren]

though I was framing it as "if a relationship is actually intimate, it's going to have secrets" - just because, if you know someone well, you're going to get things about them that others just don't - same for being known. it's not a secret like "I could tell you but I won't" it's a secret like an unexplainable mystery (in the religious, not genre fiction, sense)