I Need You So Much Closer: Mates Before Dates
About the series: “I Need You So Much Closer”
Intimacy — what does it mean to you? Death Cab for Cutie sings about it as a yearning impossibility in their 2000s classic “Transatlanticism,” some only view it as sex, others have an immense fear of the feeling. It can mean everything and nothing or be achieved with everyone and no one but yourself; it’s a complicated concept that changes with experience, especially in such an odd circumstance as quarantine. At Camp Thirlby, we relish in this vast range and simply view intimacy as an act of closeness — with romantic partners, friends, strangers, even yourself. It can be a simultaneously rewarding and terrifying experience, and self-isolation can amplify those feelings — especially when intimacy feels so unattainable. Our Camp Counselors have decided to reflect on the ways in which they find, or fail to find, this closeness, either inside or outside of the pandemic. Ranging from finding new ways of closeness during a time of crisis or rethinking past notions of intimacy, these odes to needing the affinity of people act as a reminder to its importance in a time when everything feels so distant.
Intimate: close, familiar, personal. The word intimate often brings to mind a sexual or romantic setting. But to me, friendship is the ultimate form of intimacy. Intimacy is, in a lot of ways, selective — we choose to participate in a romantic or platonic relationship for some motivating cause. Intimacy is born in connection and comes from understanding and trust. We trust our romantic partners to remain loyal and be our person, to give support and have fun times with. We trust our friends with our emotional struggles, our fears, our joys; our friends are our confidantes. Building intimacy, therefore, comes with time.
Friendship is, of course, an exchange, a relationship of give and take, similar to a romantic relationship — it’s inherently intimate. The closeness of this trusted exchange builds intimacy at different levels. All friendships have underlying motives — not necessarily malicious ones, but motives of reciprocity nonetheless. You might be friends with someone for their social connections or the community they bring you into. You might be friends with someone because you have no other friends in a certain situation, or you feel alone in some group. You might be friends with someone because they love to go out — everyone needs going-out friends when your others won’t. You may be friends with someone simply because you enjoy their companionship and spending time with them. Essentially, friendship has a purpose, a reason for its existence, and each friendship exists somewhere on a unique level of intimacy. Every friend fits a niche and can give you certain things others cannot — good and bad.
Not all friendships are considered to be intimate — though any relationship involves some level of closeness, there are friendships which surpass a certain threshold. For me, there are so many people who I enjoy spending time with or have meaningful talks with, but there are certainly fewer people who I would unequivocally trust in any situation. And that’s not to say those more casual friends aren’t valuable — this kind of friendship can provide companionship, fun, and love. But intimate friendship exists on another plane.
The word friend has a different meaning to everyone, but we often understand the depth of our relationships with one another similarly; we usually are able to contextualize our friendship with someone within our other relationships, placing it somewhere on the spectrum of close to casual. There are friends who you will catch up with over lunch on occasion, and you both willingly and happily acknowledge that that’s your relationship. There are friends you see in certain environmental contexts, made by a shared interest or community. There are friends you may live with, who you spend time with consistently, but perhaps only by circumstance.
Having a meaningful conversation or a fun time with a friend can provide comfort and happiness, as well as can build mutual care. But the intimate friendship beyond this is a friendship where you can have meaningful conversations and have a fun time, but you also understand and trust one another deeply. You can comfortably sit in the same room without speaking for hours, you understand each others’ needs and histories, you trust them to care for you and be there when you might need it.
Friendship in Quarantine
It’s inevitable that your relationship(s) with the people you’re quarantining with are significantly affected by being sectioned off from all other companionship. Relationships can weaken or develop cracks from the stress and constant togetherness. Personally, I’ve experienced the opposite. Now, in quarantine, getting to be with friends has been incredibly valuable for me. The intimacy born through constant cohabitation is inevitable, and ultimately brings you closer. Intimacy is built through hard times — trust, understanding, connection develop when there are struggles or conflict.
It may seem obvious that we’re getting along in quarantine — I’m with people who I love and already spend a lot of time with, and I also happen to be someone who already lives with my close friends. I’m also not with a significant other or family — other relationships that are considered deeply intimate — meaning there isn’t as deep of a potential for more life-shattering relationship conflict and tension. But close friendships, too, are tested by overexposure and navigation of a difficult time. Living in a small, old apartment was one thing when we often weren’t in it, but now, we’re constantly here with one another. The ability to leave and find emotional support or a more casual friend interaction beyond the house, for example, is eliminated, positioning your quarantine roommates as the only friends possible to seek support from in-person. I’m aware that I’m lucky to have any peers at all in my living situation, and I surely don’t take that for granted. But the emotional burdens of friendship shift to remain inside the house where they once may have been distributed more evenly in outside relationships.
Maintaining intimacy with friends in quarantine both comes naturally and can be a challenge. You inevitably grow closer with and experience more with people who you are forced to spend time with, but not allowing that constant exposure to dampen or put strain on your existing friendship can be difficult. Pet peeves become consistent annoyances, different ways of communicating make communication feel frustrating and impossible, even mannerisms become reminders of how much time you’ve spent with these people.
Embracing the forced intimacy has been one way I’ve managed the shift in environment and interpersonal interaction. Don’t get me wrong — being with my friends during this certainly didn’t feel like something difficult to deal with as a whole, but the impact of the change of this time is significant. Engaging with conflict and addressing it instead of letting it build up is essential to me, especially when you can’t seek outside counsel or support by, for example, going to meet someone for coffee to rant about it for ten minutes, making you feel somewhat better.
Knowing yourself and your own needs as well as the needs of others is the other crucial piece of quarantine friendship maintenance. Understanding your own consciousness and responding to it is essential for communicating with your quarantine partners. Inevitably, your emotional needs in regards to others fall on the people you’re quarantined with when they may not have fulfilled those needs prior. Are you an introvert and need alone time? Are you an extrovert and desire companionship as your natural setting? Your “people needs,” so to speak, can no longer be satisfied in other in-person relationships. And what about your roommates or friends? Do they need space, or need people? Do they like eating meals and working together, or do they prefer independence and individual focus?
I’m an extrovert — not in the sense that I’m that outgoing or that I go out a lot, but more in the sense that I recharge by spending time with people as opposed to spending time alone. To fulfill my need for companionship and interaction, I normally jump between different people in my life, placing different levels of emotional engagement on each relationship. But in quarantine, my ability to interact with people outside my physical space becomes limited to phone calls, texts, or facetimes, which often don’t fill the same space of companionship as an in-person hangout. You can’t sit in the same room and watch TV without talking just to be in the presence of another person unless you are indeed in the same room. I’ve managed by observing others’ needs and articulating my own. I’ve learned through noticing behaviors and through direct communication how my needs intersect with and conflict with others’. I’ll text the group when I want to just be in the same room with someone else, but I won’t have an expectation that certain people will be up for it. It’s understanding and a trust that others are looking out for you as you are for them; it’s intimate connection that allows quarantine friendships to stay afloat and sail forward successfully.
Maintaining intimacy with friends from afar
From afar, it can be challenging, frustrating, and even debilitating to try to maintain friendships, even without quarantine. Keeping in touch with people you love and want to keep in your life requires work. For me, there is an area between being an uncaring, unresponsive friend, and being a committed yet unresponsive friend. There are friends you talk to on occasion but wouldn’t rely on in a time of need, and then there are friends you know are your friends even without that FaceTime on the reg.
But even with those friends who you know are always there, you may still feel guilt about not responding in the group chat or not reaching out more or feel lonely or abandoned if they’re not doing the same — I know I feel both of these things. During quarantine, it may feel like the responsibility to be a caring friend has amplified. In different ways, everyone’s lives have been impacted. Despite the feeling that you should be checking in with everyone you know, it’s important to remember to take care of yourself first and to understand that they may not be able to be checking in with you either. Trusting that they will remain your friend is the sign of true intimacy, along with understanding when they can’t be there as they understand when you can’t. Compassion is essential in this time in a multitude of ways, but compassion for your friends as we all navigate our own bullshit is the most powerful way to be an intimate friend.
About the Author
Elena Phethean (she/her/hers) is a junior from Pleasantville, NY studying Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Community Health at Tufts University. There, she is the co-coordinator of Tufts Sex Health Reps, a student group bringing comprehensive and inclusive sexuality education and sexual assault prevention to campus. She also loves music and sings with her a cappella group, the Tufts Jackson Jills. As a queer woman, she is especially passionate about women’s/gender minority health and queer sexual health outcomes, as well as working with survivors.
