intimacy is both taking and being taken for granted

politeness might be robbing you of deeper connection

it was a sunday morning, sunlight peeking through the living room blinds, and I woke up in my friend hannah’s apartment. she was already awake in the kitchen, toiling over the stove making pancakes for us. as soon as she caught me rising, she hurried over with a big grin on her face and a cheery good morning.

she asked me if I wanted water, or coffee, or tea, and then dashed over to the fridge to offer even the half drank soda she had leftover from last night. I gave a warm smile and said water was a-okay.

as she handed me a mug of water, she backed up and said, “oh wait — I can also warm it up for you if you prefer!!” I laughed and said I liked my water room temperature anyways.

we giggled about our ugly, half burnt pancakes, wiggled to whatever the spotify dj threw on, reflected on the cities we now lived in, discussed ways to navigate value differences with our immigrant parents, and so on.

when it came time to dig into our pancakes, she unveiled the matcha she’d made and proceeded to bring out over five different cartons of milk, “I wasn’t sure what milk you wanted so there’s soy milk, regular milk, also almond milk. oh wait, I remember you said you didn’t love almonds, so maybe I’ll just put this away. if you prefer another milk though i can grab a different one for us tomorrow!” I chuckled nervously and gently protested, “hannah you really didn’t have to. regular milk is so chill. let’s dig into these pancakes.”

I adore hannah. I’ve always deeply admired the level of depth and consideration she is capable of. yet there was always an uneasiness i couldn’t quite name. despite a decade of friendship, monthly calls, navigating each other through new cities, heartbreak, and grief, the intimacy of our friendship never matched the intimacy of our conversation. we had the vocabulary of intimacy without the feeling of it.

I thought the uneasiness was simply how immense (and therefore overwhelming) her love felt. I questioned whether there was something within myself I had to adjust, to widen my capacity to receive that love. I also feared indebtedness, of not being able to reflect the same magnitude of care back to her. what was I missing?

1. assuming grace

the answer eventually surfaced in fragments of a relationship from a few years ago. one of my past partners once described how his parents loved when their friends treat their home as their own; when they waltz in and tumble onto the sofa, snacks from the cabinets already in hand. in another moment, as our relationship approached its end, he touched on how he’d wished we’d gotten to a point where we didn’t think twice about a kiss goodbye.

I hadn’t understood it at the time, but I realize now that those habits he romanticized were really the intimacy of the unspoken. or conversely, the distance that’s created with what we spell out, or ask permission for.

so many of our most intimate interactions are founded on certainty. there’s a certainty that’s present with knowing details like where they keep the brita filter, but even more so when you’ve asked to steal your friends fries so regularly that you know that they’ll say yes, or when you can slump into your partner’s arms for a warm embrace. both people stop asking for permission and can begin to treat it as ritual. you can take it for granted.

I realize the uneasiness I felt around hannah was from the uncertainty that lingered in the air. when she frets and asks what kind of milk i want, what she is really saying is “I don’t know what milk you want, and i’m afraid of not being able to give you it.” I would never fault her for not knowing my morning routine by heart. though there is undoubtedly a kind of intimacy when someone can pull your favourite mug off the shelf, has already poured the milk you like in your coffee, and slows their step near the rose bushes you love to linger by.

but more profoundly, the deeper intimacy is not when they know your habits, but when they know that even if they don’t, they are certain that you will give them grace. they can trust that they will be met with kindness, rather than judgement. whether it was the temperature of the water, the type of milk, or letting me choose which city we travel to together, what hannah was really saying was “I don’t know what you want, and I’m scared you will be upset with me if I’m not able to give it to you.” by providing all of those options, she was proactively defending and protecting herself from the possibility of me being upset at her. the uneasiness I felt was her anxiety, or ultimately, the absence of trust and security in our relationship.

so that begs the question…

what does it take to close the distance?

what has prevented me and hannah, and other friends like her, from getting to that point?

the most obvious answer is time and proximity to one another. in the same way that chemical reactions require surface area for reactions to unfold, with each encounter, your relationship deepens. you learn more about one another. you slowly solidify dynamics, habits and inside jokes. as you become familiar with who they are, your relationship with each other becomes comfortably predictable. this is the foundation upon which a sense of safety can grow. it’s hard to feel close to and show care for someone if you can never predict whether they’ll respond to you, what they will or won’t find funny, or what their fundamental beliefs are.

the more pivotal, perhaps less obvious step, is to let yourself not know sometimes. there will be moments where you simply have to take a leap of faith (big or small). you have to let the other person reveal to you whether they’ll be the type of person to give you grace or not. or at the very least, when someone gradually makes it clear that they are eager and willing to give you grace, assume it. start taking it for granted.

when you take grace as a given, you begin to feel at ease. intimacy is a two way street, and we can often sense when it’s missing. when you feel comfortable, it radiates from within you, and makes the other person feel comfortable too.

so often we attempt to serve others and attend to their needs in order to bring them joy, but what we forget is that to the people who love us, showing up as ourselves is all they’re asking for. i didn’t need hannah to bring me 10 different kinds of milk or 30 vacation plans, hannah being hannah was always enough for me.

2. receive love with grace

giving love graciously and receiving graciously!

there’s a saying in chinese that i grew up hearing my parents use a lot, “不好意思” (bù hǎo yì si). there’s no direct translation, but it’s often used in the context of expressing a kind of apologeticness, embarrassment and awkwardness that comes with inconveniencing someone. you’ll encounter this phrase as you bump into someone on the street, before you ask someone for a favour, or as a way to describe how it feels to do something slightly impolite, like leave a party early.

my theory is that this kind of apologetic politeness is a thief of intimacy.

when you are always apologizing, or making a huge fuss of a gesture someone has done for you, or insisting you’ll make it up to them, you have suddenly made it foreign. underlying those actions is a kind of surprise and indebtedness. you’re declaring that this is unusual for the relationship that you have for one another, rather than a form of care you both can expect from one another.

this reveals itself in our most intimate relationships. for those close to our families, we find it hard to fathom saying to our parents “oh my god you didn’t have to! I feel so bad, this is too much!” when they make us dinner each day after school. it would also raise red flags if every time your boyfriend walked you home you felt the need to apologize profusely.

these scenarios feel odd because these are the acts of love and care we’ve taken for granted. when something is a given, we don’t make a fuss about it. we think, “this is just what we do for each other”.

when we receive love with grace, we build a stronger foundation for our relationship with another. when I pick up a close friend from the airport, I’m adding a brick to our house of friendship, declaring that this is a form of love and care we can give to one another. however, if I’m met with a string of apologies or a sense of indebtedness, it feels like they’ve taken that brick back out. they’re telling me this act is in fact not foundational, not something we can take for granted from one another. rather, when I’m met with a big hug and a simple thanks, I know my love is appreciated, and I can trust we have the kind of relationship where we give in such a way.

a few years ago, in my first serious relationship, I always found myself letting my partner pick the restaurant, the date idea, or where we studied that day. I loved and cared for this person, so I wanted to give them what they wanted. this idea wasn’t wrong, but one day, that partner had sat me down and explicitly asked for me to express my opinions more. he wanted to be made aware of what I wanted, so that he could have the opportunity to give to me too. by constantly conceding my own interests, I robbed him of the opportunity to care for me. and if we love someone—when we truly love them—we do in fact want to make them happy. we make “sacrifices” for them because their joy brings us joy too. at the time, as many people pleasers do, I secretly feared our relationship would fall to pieces if I prioritized something I desired. but what our relationship really needed was for me to receive love more gracefully, to take for granted that my needs would be considered and even eagerly cared for.

the more you normalize acts of love and care, the more intimate your relationship becomes. you’re acting in accordance to the closeness you already have.

caveat: delineating taking for granted, and taking advantage of

before we part ways, I want to take the time to clear up any ambiguities. while these two terms are often used with similar connotations, it’s important to differentiate them.

• taking advantage is about exploiting or creating a gap between what you receive versus what you give. if someone is taking advantage of someone, they are trying to take more than they give.

• taking for granted is purely about how you receive something. it’s obviously often used with negative connotations of ingratitude and disrespect, but i think that it mostly speaks to whether something feels true without question, or expected in your life.

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a parting metaphor

there was a piece I read a while ago that described small talk as a dance. it’s an important stage of a relationship because you’re deliberately testing boundaries. for most of the dance, you’re controlling the distance between the two of you, swinging in and out, leaning left or right, mirroring one another. but true friendship, true intimacy, isn’t a dance, it’s a hug. it’s a warm, steady embrace, neither controlled or deliberate; both people relishing in the certainty of their love, sinking softly into one another.

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this is my first substack post ever!! if you enjoyed this or have any feedback or ideas, feel free to shoot me a message on twitter (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)

i see all of my pieces as evergreen, and will release updates or expand upon them as i grow older, and hopefully wiser too.

names and details have been modified for the privacy of those i mentioned.

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big thank you to Wilbur for being a true thought partner in crime, Fiona for egging me on into a substack era, Flo & Jake for first draft indulgers, and Preston Rakovsky for a spontaneous, thoughtful conversation that finally nudged me to start putting my thoughts out there.