| 5/4/2008 12:25:53 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
gonesailingbabe
Des Moines, IA
age: 45
| Discussed and kicked around the notion of intimacy with others on DH, via email, telephone, web camming etc.,
My point in the discussion was that I have been "intimate" with someone who is a friend.
His point?
"We haven't had sex!?!?!"
Uhm, hello?
Being intimate has little to do with "having sex".
He argued I was mistaken.
I, on the other hand, knew I was not.
So he said to me - "well, there's your next thread"
Indeed!
Here's the definition of intimate:
in·ti·mate [ ínt?m?t ]
adjective
Definition:
1. close: having, involving, or resulting from a close personal relationship
2. cozy: quiet and private or secluded, enabling people to feel relaxed with each other
3. private and personal: so private and personal as to be kept secret or discussed only with a close friend or relative
4. sexual: involving or having a sexual relationship ( often used euphemistically )
5. closely connected: very close because of the influence of one thing on another
the intimate connection between power and corruption
6. thorough: very great and detailed as a result of extensive study or close experience
an intimate knowledge of the workings of government
7. worn next to skin: intended to be worn next to the skin or in a private setting
intimate apparel
8. innermost: relating to or involving the innermost nature of something
noun (plural in·ti·mates)
Definition:
close friend: a close personal friend
On DH we frequently become "intimate" with other folks.
Some we do know, and some we do not.
To what level are you being intimate with people you meet on the internet?
Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life?
Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?
Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?
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| 5/4/2008 12:35:55 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
chopperbabe
Overland Park, KS
age: 47
| To what level are you being intimate with people you meet on the internet?
- sharing personal things that I do not post in the forums. Like my son's name, where I work, etc.
Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life?
- it is no different than real life as it is on the internet. Some people I share more with than others. Depends upon my comfort level with them.
Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?
- Yes, I've shared a lot of things about me that I am not comfortable with but it is a part of who I am and without acknowledging that then I am not showing trust.
Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?
- no, in fact because of the distance I am more cautious. Everything can be googled and ya I can piss someone off to where they could use the personal things that I've confided in them to their advantage and post it. But then they would look bad themselves and other eyes who read it would be wary of them to confide in them as well. So the risk is there for them as well.
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| 5/4/2008 1:10:44 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
gonesailingbabe
Des Moines, IA
age: 45
| Sometimes a certain level of risk is worth the level of trust you receive in return. I'm learning to be more cautious, because my natural compulsion is to believe everyone is good and honest and has the best intentions.
LOL! I'll acknowledge that I also have the ability to piss someone off enough that they would wish to hurt me...
I'm guilty!
[Edited 5/4/2008 1:28:37 PM]
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| 5/4/2008 1:26:43 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
chopperbabe
Overland Park, KS
age: 47
| I trust everyone 100% until they prove me otherwise. I've had the she said/he said stuff and I know that there are two sides to every story. I try to look outside the box to figure out the other side if they are not there. I can have friends that cannot tolerate the other yet I am still friends with them. I don't like picking sides for I wouldn't want that to happen to me and it has before but I was treated like shit compared to the other person so I vowed that I wouldn't do the same.
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| 5/4/2008 1:30:38 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
your_sweetie
Yuba City, CA
age: 49
| Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life? yes I do.
Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?
Yes there has been a few times I have shared some intimate things with people, which I have
had second thoughts about.
Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?
I don't know that I would call it occasionally but I do think you become more rapidly intimate online than in person...
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| 5/4/2008 1:31:49 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
gonesailingbabe
Des Moines, IA
age: 45
| I agree being caught between friends is difficult, and again the level of intimacy shared with each and knowing the personal things about both becomes such a tight line to tread. Recently I tried very hard to having a friend in the middle between myself and another - but when I asked her to stay out of the center, she saw that as me shutting her out o fmy life and my pain. I was trying to protect her, and she felt excluded...
Women?!
No wonder the guys find us hard to decipher?
I just found the reaction of "we haven't HAD SEX!" so funny when I spoke about intimacy with a male friend. He was shocked and I think somewhat astonished I thought we had been intimate...he was without any doubt INCREDULOUS!!! 
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| 5/4/2008 1:32:27 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
zeanah
Clarion, PA
age: 49
| That's a very good subject!
I am a very social person and can talk to anyone just about anything. I do not embarrass easily and this gets me into trouble sometimes. I have learned to be more closed with info and opening my heart up to soon. I never assume anything , nor do I believe everything I am told. I have learned also, that they may not actually lie, but do by ommission. Sometimes people do not tell you the whole story until they meet you and you are like WTF? They are issues that they should have told me before we met. These are deal breakers, not just little minor things.
Yes...I have gotten in way over my head before emotionally and allowed myself to open up more than I should have. Through experience and my mistakes, I have learned a great deal about the do's and don'ts. Seeing is believing and actions speak louder than words. I am more distant with info and being to emotional now. It was a valuable lesson and glad I am aware of it's potential dangers and possible heart ache.
It is a learning process, but you have to truly learn from your mistakes and use the gained wisdom. I simply do not have faith in anyone until I meet them and they prove their life and who they are. I expect them to do the same with me. I do not become intimate without meeting them and knowing more about them. Another very valuable lesson.
It is not real life to me until I actually meet the person. The internet is not always a good measuring stick for someones character and intentions. It does impact my real life at times, but I try not to allow it. Mostly it has been a waste of my real life time! That frustrates me.
Sure it is a risk, but one I am willing to take to find some possible happiness. I will always be on guard and will not take all words to heart, but I will give it a chance.
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| 5/4/2008 1:53:27 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
drumrman
Belmont, MA
age: 43
| To what level are you being intimate with people you meet on the internet?
i'm not. plain & simple.
Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life?
none whatsoever!
Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?
online, in my personal life? 
Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?
maybe once, but never again.
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| 5/4/2008 2:23:50 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
tedric
Anchor Point, AK
age: 67
| Steffanie, another thought provoking Thread!
Before answering your questions, I would have to define “Real Life” ~ Reality.
I sort of like Webster’s fifth definition of Reality: “Something that exists independently of all other things and from which all other things derive”.
In that sense, relationships formed on-line are no less real than those built upon face-to-face encounters; and, in fact, I will go so far as to say that on-line relationships may be even more real.
I base that belief on the advent of the DELETE key, which gives us the opportunity to rethink what we present to others. Real Life seldom offers that option, so (in Real Life) we often appear to be fools while stumbling over just the right words to reflect our meaning. This shouldn’t imply that using the DELETE key is dishonest, but rather it is being thoughtful, considerate, and completely honest. We are not always that in Real Life, and that’s usually due to circumstances or constrictions of Time and Place; the Internet allows us to circumvent those restrictions, take our time, and tell it like it is.
(To what level are you being intimate with people you meet on the internet?)
I have a few very close friends on DH, but only one that I consider “intimate”. We both know that, because of distance and lifestyles, there will never be a face-to-face meeting for us, but it has not, and will not, affect our love and deep trust in one another. We have shared thoughts, feelings, and secrets that neither of us have disclosed to any other, and I believe that’s because our reality is only in the ether; a “place” where the intangible is touched with the heart. It is a safe place.
(Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life?)
Absolutely! As I described it to her, being loved with the essence of intent rather than the needs of physicality gives a freedom to the heart that must be somewhat disguised in Real Life because of societal and other obligations coming to the fore (work, kids, neighbors, In-Laws, bills, etc.).
(Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?)
Only in Real Life, which is part of the reason for four Ex-wives. Seemed to be a pattern; one that I kept repeating by choosing partners with problems they were not able to rise above, nor to share intimately.
(Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?)
Yes, and for all the above mentioned reasons; the foremost being the feeling of safety in having that option to DELETE something stupid before hitting “ENTER”.
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| 5/4/2008 4:28:09 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
sitkarains
Sitka, AK
age: 48
| I will say even though I answered your questions with quite abit Satire.
I have had many intimate conversations with people on DH more so than the other site I was on. Due to the fact I find that most of the people out here are just normal, doing the best they can with what life is throwing at them the same as I am. To me Intimacy is nothing more than connecting heart to heart. There is nothing sexual about it. There is several types of Intimacy. I have found I trust to quickly and am usually burned by it. But I live and learn and refuse to buy into the negativity of it.
To what level are you being intimate with people you meet on the internet?
I have tried it in the past and somewhere the info usually is screwed up. So I have learned the hard way. Not to trust anyone with anything and even throw them a red herring or two.
Do you find it's adding positively to your "real" life?
I am very intimate in my "real" life.
Do you believe at times you may have allowed a level of intimacy you aren't comfortable with?
Do you think you occasionally become more intimate with someone online, more rapidly - than you would with someone you had just met in your real life?
Well I have I will admit. I also through trail and error have learned not a good idea. Since in real life when something goes south, I have people that know me and know who I am. On the internet well they just have aglimpse of something they perceive..
Bottom line to me this happens with males and females.
Intimacy means this literally
in-to-me-you-see
Edited for quotes not content
[Edited 5/4/2008 5:09:44 PM]
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| 5/4/2008 4:34:19 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
veteran61
Farmington, IL
age: 47 online now!
| Rains, It amazes me that you are single! I'd scoop you up in a heartbeat!
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| 5/4/2008 4:38:44 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
misssmatch
Cleveland, TN
age: 51
| i rarely become intimate with someone online if i don't see it developing into something that can be carried over into the real world...
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| 5/4/2008 4:43:10 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
thebestman
Alpharetta, GA
age: 34
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| 5/4/2008 5:01:23 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
bethlet
Spokane, WA
age: 49
| Anyone who is "intimate" on this website has a death wish. I've been on the net for years, and I have not seen this much lying, deception and behind the scenes drama and threats since the Yahoo forum days.
Hell. I was aboveboard about having created a male profile to go POF and try to fool the moderators. The people on this forum reacted to that news like it was the first time they'd EVER heard of anyone "faking it" on the net! The profile I created and the reason for its creation was a far damn cry from creating fake human beings with fake pictures to try to fool an entire forum community into thinking you are god's gift to the world so you can "rule" on some damn forum board in some stupid forum clique and get a bunch of people to write you a whole bunch of subsequently meaningless email since they are writing to what they THINk the person is, not what the person REALLY is.
This forum community is the posterchild for "Deception and the need for Anonymity on the Net"
No one that socializes on the internet really knows anyone until they have gone to their house, seen their driver's license, called them at work and been able to verify that the company actually exists....then and only then can it be said that the person is a "friend"....that you are "intimate"....and that you "know" one another.
It's all conjecture and blind faith up til then.
Bottom line? Don't assume you're hearing truth and honesty when you chat up someone from the net. You sure the hell ain't talkin' to Jesus on the other end of the line!
[Edited 5/4/2008 5:06:03 PM]
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| 5/4/2008 5:06:47 PM | Being Intimate on DH and what THAT means | |
soulcrazy
San Clemente, CA
age: 39
| I agree that you have to be extra careful but you can find love on here. I am proof of that and there are a few other couples that have too. Just like in the real world you will meet players and scammers and you will meet people you think you might have something in common with and it may or may not work out.
JMO
~Cajun~
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