“Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.”

Intimacy is not the polished performance we often assume it to be—it is, in fact, the gentle and profound realization that another person can tolerate, and even cherish, our oddities. It is the quiet relief of seeing our own peculiarities reflected back at us without scorn.

In the early days of love, we are often at our most presentable. We carefully edit our personalities, displaying only the most attractive, socially acceptable facets of ourselves, hoping to maintain the illusion of seamless compatibility. But true intimacy—the kind that lasts beyond the initial dazzle—is what happens when the mask inevitably slips. When, in the middle of the night, one of us mutters an absurd dream half-awake, and instead of recoiling, the other murmurs something just as ridiculous in return.

We spend much of our lives believing that love is about impressing another, when, in reality, it is about discovering that we can be wholly unguarded. That our strangest habits—our particular way of folding socks, our niche enthusiasms, the odd phrases we say to ourselves while cooking—are not cause for rejection but invitations for closeness.

It is a tragedy of modern romance that so many of us assume we must be "normal" to be lovable. We edit out the eccentricities, fearing they will be met with confusion or disdain. But the great and often unexpected joy of love is realizing that what makes us feel strange and solitary might, in the right company, make us understood and adored.

Intimacy is not just about sharing our grandest thoughts, our deepest secrets, or our loftiest ambitions. It is about the small, bizarre, utterly human moments that remind us that we are safe in the presence of another. That we are not too much, nor too little, but simply enough—as we are, in all our weirdness.