A story of intimacy in the age of Instagram

How do you get to know a person when their entire life is already visible, traceable, and exposed?

You’ve already seen their past four vacations including the pasta they ate in Rome and the goats they milked in Puglia. Even before your first date you’ve already scrolled down to the winter of 2015 and know all their nephews by name. Not to mention the ex-girlfriends – always more identifiable than you’d like. If you’re particularly unlucky it turns out some of them are models who now grace your feed in sponsored posts from a hip clothing brand you used to like.

So how do we create intimacy in this era of little-to-no-mystery? Does Instagram help us get to know someone faster, or just shallower? Does it create an entry point for conversation, or just envy?

What’s intimacy in the first place?

After all, Instagram – as we all know – is a highly curated run way show only displaying the very best of each collection. No ripped seams, no long-legged models sniffing coke backstage, and no wonky boob-tape. Just perfectly fitted silhouettes of the shadows we chose to present to the rest of the world.

Let’s turn our attention to what happens offline for a second, to the intimacy that’s created off-screen and off-eyes to the rest of the world. The stuff that happens when you know someone so well you’ve counted all the grey hairs of their butthole.

I used to think peeing in front of a boyfriend was a sign of a relationship that’s gotten too comfortable, too…grey-sweatpants-in-the-couch while he watches me eat crisp crumbs that have fallen into my bra. But it turns out it’s also a sign of trust, of knowing you won’t be judged or liked less because of your most human sides. And as a person with IBS I come with some pretty uncute accessories, let’s be real. Instead, these things can create the most profound sense of caring about someone. A pure tenderness served up carpaccio-raw on a plate, and now I wouldn’t want a relationship without it.

Intimacy is discovering the stuff that wasn’t worthy enough of a post or a story. The stuff that’s too real, too embarrassing, too painful, and too fucking unmarketable to fit in with your “personal brand” (please note the mocking use of quotation marks).

The ultimate display

Then there’s that first photo you post of the two of you together. The official reveal as a united unit of molecules. That intimacy portrayed and exposed to the rest of the world might just be the rawest and most straight-forward version of intimacy a millennial could possibly feel. Possibly.

It’s like looking each of your “followers” in the eyes and saying yes, it’s a thing. I chose this person and I’m proud of it. That’s why I’m showing it to you even though you didn’t specifically ask but please press here to opt-out of the cheezy-caption-posts I’m already planning to share from our first weekend trip together. There might be goats, and there might be pasta, and there sure will be a fuck-ton of intimacy on public display.

“Oh I saw you like climbing, tell me more!” *

* All dudes on Tinder climb as proven by this study published in Sociology Now. Kidding. There’s no link because there’s no study but we all know it’s kind of true.

One of the few good things Instagram can create is interest. Interest in getting to know the object of your affection even more – we’re talking about the very core, dirty stuff that’s not visible to the rest of the world.

And you can’t ask a person a mountain-related question if you didn’t know they climbed Mont Blanc in the first place. You can’t ask them about how they grew in other relationships if you didn’t know they had them (ok, Instagram is not the only way to find out but you get me). There was a life before you and what they experienced in it will influence the kind of intimacy you build – if you’re open to it.

I remember the first few months with my main and only squeeze. There was so much I wanted to know, so many questions I wanted to ask and so little time between all my damn work-trips. Were you happy as a kid? What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you? Do you make weird noises when you sleep? As another only child, did you miss having siblings? (The answer was no, he liked having all the toys to himself).

But I also wanted it to take its time. Because getting to know someone takes time. You don’t need all the answers immediately – that would diffidently kill all intimacy. So let it take time. Ask questions, and then, you know, just make out.