Intimacy, or Fear Thereof

Once again, I am loving this A-Z Blogger's Challenge because it is getting me to open up a little and explore new things and get back to more intimate stuff once again.  For the past several months this blog has gone from a good mix of the personal, music, and other things that pique my interest to mostly music.  That fact hasn't gone unnoticed by fans of those other types of posts.

So far in this year's challenge, I've written a poem about being broke, another on a lingering issue, some personal issues I've been having with my family, Cuba, Divas, what I do for a living, and one of my favorite all-time movies, Hairspray.  Today I'm going to tackle an issue that is highly personal, but when I first started thinking about the 'I' post, this word kept popping up in my head over and over...

beyondtheborderlinepersonality

Intimacy - a close, familiar, and affectionate personal relationship.

I guess I've know this for a long time, but I've never really tried to address it.  You see, I just don't know how.  Yes, I'm talking about an innate fear of being intimate with another person.  It's not that I don't want to achieve intimacy with another person, but the inner workings of my mind lead me to avoid it, usually subconsciously, whenever the possibility comes up.

Over the past several weeks I've had a couple of dates with a guy I met on Fire Island last summer, and during those dates my awareness of the problem came up.  You see, whenever we'd take our first drink, whether at dinner or home, he'd make mention of me looking into his eyes as we toasted our date.  It made me instantly aware that my eyes hardly met his when we spoke, a sure sign of intimacy issues.  It wasn't something I was consciously aware of, but it was something I do nonetheless.

Now I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons for this fear I harbor inside of me, probably deep-rooted stuff from my childhood that's lingered all of these years.  It could also be my age and that after a failed long-term relationship I want to get it right the next time, so unless I'm really feeling it for the other guy, I'm shooting him down before he even gets a chance.  My last significant relationship also knocked me for a loop in the intimacy department.  During that short-lived one, I had (at least I didn't think I had, but maybe I did) little problems with it.  Who the hell knows?

Anyway, I know I probably should seek professional help, but I'm one of those kinds of intelligent people who inwardly believe he can't be helped in that manner, and also I dread the search of finding the right professional for the job.  In the meantime, I'm just going to keep putting myself out there and hoping for that spark that'll make all of those intimacy issues go by the wayside.  Yikes!    

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