Intimacy through non-romantic gestures

**What are some of your favorite non-romantic gestures of intimacy? **
For me, I genuinely love listening and watching someone talk about their passion(s).
I really love reading with someone, as well. Having a book read aloud while eating fruit is also a classic favorite. Especially in the sunshine 😇

cuddles_ndream

We would spend hours talking lol this is really nice!! ☺️

bluesman368

Being truly helpful to someone, actively listening, cooking for someone, playing them a song or writing something about and for them.
My giving love language is acts of service. Interestingly, my receiving language is touch.

Babichev

Reading aloud to one another - yes! My former husband and I started reading to each other when we were first together and read lots of articles to each other and several novels. My former girlfriend did not grow up in a family of readers and would make fun of me because I always had a novel going. I read a couple of Rita Mae Brown’s novels to her. My boyfriend after that read Beowulf and parts of Moby Dick and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to me, plus some other random things. A later boyfriend would read Jane Austin and Shakespeare to me.

Feeding someone and being fed.

I do henna and that’s a rather intimate interaction.

Lying on a quilt on the grass with someone and watching the clouds.

Partner dancing can be quite intimate. I sure miss it.

When I used to play music, I found playing with others to be very intimate.

Mela_B

Prolonged eye contact with friends. Even just acquaintances. I've practiced this with people and it changes the relationship. It requires a certain amount of trust and vulnerability.

I’m loving all these answers! Making my night better after a stressful day! Thank you!!!

For me, it is music.

Our “culture” views nearly every interaction through a lens of sex, commerce, or both. It is deeply threatened and challenged by intimacy.

I learned this teaching basic drumming at community college extension classes, of all places.

The first three semesters I taught my 8-week syllabus a curious thing happened...I lost about 1/2 to 2/3 of students between Week 4 and Week 5. That is, Week 4 would have 20 students attend, but Week 5 would have 6-10.

EVERY SEMESTER.

I was puzzled, but clueless the first semester. The second semester I was puzzled, but now deeply concerned. The third semester I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t a coincidence. Something in Week 4 was so distasteful, so threatening or challenging, that students dropped out.

And without complaint. Without so much as an angry word, or outburst during that Week 4’s class, without a note to me, or even an attempt to get a refund from the administrator for the cost of class.

Simply gone, and not coming back.

And what, you might ask, was I teaching in Week 4?

Shiftitelli. A basic rhythm, really good for explaining how rhythms are composed. Six tones over the course of eight counts...

I was teaching it at a VERY slow tempo, and I was stressing the importance of group communication and dynamics, so that everyone was on time and in the groove, lending power to the rhythm, and not losing cohesion by playing out of time or sequence.

And the best way to get a group “together” is eye contact with the leader. Everyone watches, everyone keeps connected to everyone, lots of nodding, acknowledgement, and smiles.

And it dawned on me...

I was losing nearly half of my students, every time, from intimacy. Looking at each other, holding each other and themselves accountable within the group, and truly working together with other humans towards a goal, was simply too much.

So, Week 4 during my fourth semester of teaching I changed it up a bit.

I warned everyone it would feel a little strange, a bit uncomfortable or even creepy, and that those feelings were created by how used to isolation we all are, and how challenging, intimate, and frightening the direct eye contact would feel.

And everyone laughed, and I chuckled and said, “No, really. Don’t freak out when you freak out a bit.”

At the end of that Week 4 class I got a FLOOD of questions and comments in the last ten minutes. We chatted about them, and about how that connection and vulnerability were central to not only the musician’s experience, but also to our human experience.

That by working through it, and getting more comfortable with it, they would improve dramatically.

And, I lost NO ONE in Week 5.

I share this, because we often forget in this “culture” that simple human connection is the most POWERFUL thing that we can experience, create, and share.

I’m all for the lovely, long, human affirming embracing and connecting, but it’s a good idea to warn everybody, there is more than one kind of embrace.

You will be touched by them all.

quixotic_life

@CharlesThePoet ~ I'd really like to take that class!!

@quixotic_life

I really miss teaching it!

AngelPendavez

@CharlesThePoet That's amazing! And good on you for figuring that out and addressing it accordingly!
You taking the time allowed more people to get the most out of the class, it shows that you really care. I appreciate that. ^^

To answer the original question ~

• watching movies or tv shows together
• listening to music or podcasts together
• linking arms
• being comfortable with bodily functions from one another
• doing ordinary tasks together, like grocery shopping or errand running
• going to their doctor/dentist appointment with them
• doing your own separate things while being together (aka being alone, together)
• anything handmade (a drawing, a note, etc..)
• open and honest conversation
• exercising together
• giving encouragement and moral support
• sharing anything paired with "this made me think of you" (memes, photos, songs, gifts, etc...)
• grooming (hair brushing or fixing, getting that stray lint off of their clothes)
• falling asleep together
• borrowing clothes
• taking care of someone when their sick
• helping them clean their space
• cuddling ^^

And this is something I've never done, but I like the idea of trust exercises, like guiding each other through a town square or an obstacle course while one is blindfolded.

I've done this one with some of my friends, we look through interesting recipes and decide on something we want to make. One gets the ingredients , the other hosts with the use of their kitchen and dishes.

Following the recipes we make the dish together and then have dinner. It's really open my eyes to trying new kinds of food that I would have been apprehensive to prepare on my own.

Right now in my freezer I have some turtle meat and some alligator fillets just waiting for some time we can get together and browse the best recipes.

blisscuddles

Volunteering with someone. Double dose of joy…sharing experience with someone while doing something for someone else.

Nature_Lover_

@simsaddict this is my favorite post! The answers, including yours are amazing! @EarthlyAngel003 your answer really got me! I was thinking about how I might answer this post or what I might share and your answer illuminates my thought process in which it is not the act itself so much as the relationship between the two people which fosters intimacy.
I am the type of friend who will just start doing the dishes while at your house hanging out and it’s an act of service to communicate love, care, appreciation although there is nothing directly intimate or affectionate about such a task at first glance. Obviously I don’t do that with all my friends or acquaintances, so please don’t everyone invite me over at once 🤣.
@KYtranspant that is one of my all time favorite types of gatherings and for the reasons you shared. Curious what you might do with the alligator meat as well! 🤣

@Touch_You_Crave the trick is not to overcook it, it's a very delicate white meat.

I'll be sure to update when I finally settle on a recipe

Nature_Lover_

@KYtranspant yes please update! Sounds interesting and I’m sure it will be amazing.

TheMidnightOwl

@simsaddict - to your original post.

Omg, yessss. Really to this entire thread. So much yes. Why can’t all posts be like this?

UKGuy

I take my daughter to Baskin Robins for ice-cream. There is no-one to do anything else with.

Babichev

@EarthlyAngel003, I’ve done the bit of closing my eyes and letting someone else guide me. I really enjoy doing it.

stormydaycuddle

@Babichev Referring to your post above I read and cuddled with a friend and he suggested/joked that I should do this. I’d already seen Bill Nye’s segment on pro cuddling and was interested in it. (if anyone hasn’t seen it here I recommend it. It paints us in the right way and it’s great knowing science behind it.)

MxSmith

There was this thread a while back about cuddling while being violently ill which was kind of gross, but I'd like to reiterate that there is a very sweet intimacy in being cared for in basic ways when you feel terrible.

I also love how animals convey care and comfort by sitting on us.

Nature_Lover_

@verucasalt I'm going to check the bill bye segment on pro cuddling out! Thanks for bringing my attention to this! I am absolutely fascinated by the scientific aspect of cuddling!!

Really good stuff on this thread everyone!
I’ve certainly been implementing new ones in my normal life.

saxman

Simply having a lady talk to me and genuinely take an interest in the fact that I am HUMAN, to me, is intimate. A simply gesture of touch means the world to me, but it is hard for me to trust anything because when I do open up, no one is able to handle it due to the fact that my needs are so deep because I never knew my mom and sister, no one knows ho to handle a full grown man that is still searching for himself. (BTW, I LOVE Kentucky and wish I could move out there)

cuddles_ndream

@saxman ”no one knows how to handle a full grown man that is still searching for himself” - that was so honest & powerful!

May I recommend both 23andMe & AncestryDna? If either of them has taken it , or a sibling / kids / close relative ect you may find what you’re looking for quickly.

Singing someone to sleep.

TheFunCartel

May I recommend both 23andMe & AncestryDna?

What, and get caught?

cuddles_ndream

Get caught how? he never mentioned wanting to avoid them.

Morpheus

I think I can make anything intimate 🤷🏻‍♂️

CuddleDuncan

@cuddles_ndream it's a joke. He's a well-known axe murderer and bathroom-seat-leaver-upper, but his real identity is unknown. If his DNA got into the public domain 5,000 FBI agents would be put out of work.

cuddles_ndream

@CuddleDuncan im ditzy at times lol 😂

I was given a compliment from a friend the other day. She said, "I don't know how you do it, but you just love everyone." It wasn't my worst day after hearing that. I wrote about it and realized I don't judge anyone. I even wrote about intimacy and realized I could delete the romantic connotation I had attached which opened new doors of perspective and interaction.