Closeness and Intimacy

Abstract

Social encounters are always vulnerable, and especially so when they take place between those previously unacquainted. In seeking intimacy or closeness, we risk rejection. As Iris Marion Young (1997) puts it, opening up to the other person is always a gift—and a risk. Our gesture of opening up to the other person may not be welcomed, or our counterparts may be reluctant to reciprocate. On other occasions, in simply trying to attend to a practical matter, we get drawn into a much more involved social interaction than we expected. In some ways, this vulnerable state of affairs is how it has to be: the magic of a pleasant and exciting encounter with a stranger derives its value in part from having dared to take a risk that then led to a positive outcome.