I told a secret the other day. It wasn’t a huge secret to me, but it wasn’t something that I necessarily want the whole world to know either. I didn’t really think it over before I told him, but afterward I was glad I did because it was one of those things that you have to tell right away. If I didn’t and it came out later it would have looked like I was hiding it and that would have opened up a big can of worms. Anyway. So I told him, he was cool about it, and it was fine. No biggie. A couple of days later I just happened to mention to him that someone else knew about it and the shit hit the fucking fan. One minute we’re having an off-handed conversation about nothing in particular and the next we’re having a huge discussion about intimacy and privacy and what should be kept sacred between the two of us.

Well colour me blind-sided because I never thought that this particular secret would ever inspire such a conversation. In my mind, it was a relatively innocuous secret and definitely not – by my definition anyway- something private between us. But clearly Mr. SA and I have wildly different opinions of what defines an intimate conversation between us. Clearly. So. While I was mulling that over, I received the following email from a new reader: Was hoping to get a female perspective on this: What do you consider an intimate conversation between 2 people? Please share your thoughts. Weird, right? Here I am sitting here puzzling around what should define an intimate conversation and here he comes asking me the very same thing! It was destiny.

That night when I got home from work I was still mulling things over when suddenly my phone rang. It was my bus driver; to whom I’d given my number in a fit of good-nature a few days before that because he was cool and funny. But after about 15 seconds of conversation I knew we were in for a problem. This dude came HARD (no pause) on the sex tip. Right out of the gate he talked about what he likes, what he does, and all the things he would do to me if he got me in bed. It was insane. And, frankly, hilarious. (check out the video if you want an example of the insane talks he was giving me). While he was going on and on there was but one thought in my head: this conversation is waaaay too intimate for two people who just met to be having. Every once in a while the stars align in such a way so as to show me that I should be writing about something. And these three things all happening in one day was a sign to me that I should write about intimate conversations. But as I contemplated doing that I realized that I have no real definition in my head of what exactly intimacy is. I mean I get the obvious things like private details of sex with someone you care about, the fine details of your relationship problems. I get that those are things that should never be shared outside the confines of your relationship. But beyond that, it all seems to blurry to me. What makes a conversation intimate? The topic? Or our desire for it to be intimate? Does intimate conversation only occur among a couple or are there intimate details of a friendship, intimate conversations between siblings or e-boos that should never be taken outside the confines of those relationships? When we’re talking about intimate conversation are we really just talking about secrets?

I don’t have answers to any of these questions, but I’m hoping some of you do. So let’s get a little discussion going today. Tell me how you guys define intimacy and whether you’re only concerned about it when it comes to your romantic relationships or if there’s intimacy involved in all your relationships? How important is it for each member of a couple to have the same definition of intimacy, and if they don’t – whose opinion wins? Share your thoughts with me in the comments.