Intimate Friends

Intimate relationships.
Now if that isn't the two scariest words for most single people. I mean we say we all want them. But are we really willing to do what it takes to have them?

It's not really relegated to just the relations we have with a partner or someone we are dating. It can also be in your friendships, your REAL friendships. Lets first define the fact that we have two general types of friendships. Those that are only skin deep, literally, and those that are more meaningful, our true friends.

Skin deep friendships are usually those where we each are gaining something from the friendship. Its out of convenience. Come on most everyone has them. It's your friend that you go to happy hour with. The one that you only see and talk to when your planning those great nights out on the town. Or maybe its the one who you talk to at work, but seldom any other time. Maybe its the one you live vicariously through. The one who always has exciting fun things going on in their world and you like staying connected to all their friends and fun VIP invites. Whatever the reason or the benefit, we have all had friends like this. But can you go deeper with these people, can you have a true intimate friendship? The key question might be do you even want to go deeper with this person?

Allot of people will think of intimate being sexual in nature. Well actually as Webster defines it: "most private or personal; very close or familiar; deep and thorough; an intimate friend."

So how many do you have? Do you know what it takes to have them? Do you really push yourself to be real and open with your friends? Do you have the kind of friends you want to be intimate with?

I think most of us would like to think we do. Or at least for now, it fits our own personal definition of intimacy. These relationships or lack there of can often define not only who we are. But these friendships can also lay the groundwork for how we act in dating situations or in other words they can also forecast to us, what kind of relationships we have with someone who is 'more than a friend'.

Think about it. Do your friendships last. Do you seem to hop around in closeness from one person to another. Are you one of those who has a BFF of the month club. When things get rough or your not getting along with a friend do you distance yourself from them or do you use this opportunity to talk with them openly to discuss the issues. Do you open up and talk about it honestly? Or do you kind of pull away and ignore them for a while. Do you see where I am going with this? If we pull away from our personal close friends now in our lives, or if we run away when things are tough. Then we most likely do this in more serious dating relationships too. Likewise, we often can be scared off by getting too close to someone. Have you ever pulled away from a friend right after you let your guard down, after you became vulnerable? Sometimes, we fear success or closeness for fear we might get hurt. This might not be good for our future relations with anyone, whether it be friend or companion.

So how do we fix this? Start with your friends. Get to know them more and let them know you too. Make sure you aren't surrounded with superficial friends. This might mean stepping out of your comfort zone, doing things a little differently. It might mean you need to make some changes. Make sure your going more than skin deep. Fix those relationships in front of you first and then you might see new opportunities being attracted to you and you to them. It ultimately can change the types of people you date and are attracted to and like-wise bring you different results. Even better than that, your friendships will flourish and grow to something wonderful & meaningful. Surround yourself with great people, let intimacy in and everything else will follow.

Attached is an MP3 of John Burkes message on Intimacy, September 30, 2007. It should be available within the nest 24 hours of this posting. Click on the title INTIMATE FRIENDS at top to download message.