Fear, usually for good reason, is often based on partial awareness of something but incomplete understanding about it. What are your fears about having an intimate connection, emotional or otherwise, with someone?

Fear? I welcome it.
Its getting there that is the issue.
I wouldn't call it fear tho, more like frustration.

When you face your own mortality and survive, there's not much left to fear.
Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% fatality.
Nobody gets out alive.

The fear of intimacy holds no bounds to me.

Too much of it can be annoying. Everybody needs personal space, and shall not be controlled. I went through all that

None! It takes me a long time to get intimate with a man.

Yet I have dates and go to dinner and movies, text! I like a buddy pal.

Not trying to be clever but I think fear may be the wrong term. I think fear, although an emotion, is caused by a sense of danger or harm.

I think excitement in a positive way or apprehension in a worried way is more like it, for me anyway.

My concern would be myself. Have I become happy enough in my own world that tearing down my walls for someone would expose the weaknesses I’ve spent years hiding so well.

I am apprehensive that the one I would be with might need more love than I could give, or that we might not effectively get along and the relationship would not really be a healthy situation for either them or me.

Intimacy leads to attachments and expectations. I agree people need their space as I do myself. And to a certain degree privacy. Just have to use common sense.

I think fear of intimacy is part of the thrill of a new relationship. The on-edge feelings like...does he like me too...does he find me attractive...is he playing or serious...will we be compatible in bed or will he have strange and unusual tastes...are all part of the excitement until they're proven right or wrong. It's one of the things that make us want to discover more about the one we're crushing on.

We have to become intimately knowledgeable about one another to find the answers, and sometimes the answers are not what we wish they would be. This creates fear of building up to another loss. IMO

I think with intimacy comes expectations of the person you get involved with.
Best to take your time and be friends, non sexual until you Know the person can commit to a real relationship.

This is for people seeking true commitment. Otherwise dating with sex does not apply to this advice. imo

I never had the slightest apprehension about intimacy until I had a date with someone who turned out to be in many ways to be what I then considered to be my 'dream' date...a woman who wanted to be held close even when sleeping...and craved my body.....after six months of the best sex I'd ever had, ... I was totally bored with it........now i want a person I can relate to, finally I fear intimacy

I never had the slightest apprehension about intimacy until I had a date with someone who turned out to be in many ways to be what I then considered to be my 'dream' date...a woman who wanted to be held close even when sleeping...and craved my body.....after six months of the best sex I'd ever had, ... I was totally bored with it........now i want a person I can relate to, finally I fear intimacy

I fear intimacy with my dentist's drill...

My I don't give a crap attitude far exceeds any fear I use to have,it's amazing the benefits one gains with PTSD (sarcasm)..

Sounds more like you just need to give yourself more time to know each other better before jumping into anything serious. If your partner is "pushing" too hard for this "intimacy" then maybe there is something to "fear".

I agree with the above I don't think we fear intimacy... But sometimes you have a fear that you may not be pleasing to your partner physically... in your naked state.. or you fear you may not be able to satisfy your partner physically... you may fear that you don't have the physical stanima.. you once did.. you may fear that you might be too fast or too slow. In achieving a orgasms... you fear that you're not in the best shape ever!!! physically.... you may fear that your new partner is too kinky or not kinky enough to giving are not giving enough too experienced are not experienced enough..... but at the end of the day I don't think we fear intimacy quite the opposite most people enjoy intimacy... it's just getting past that first time with a new partner... that point where you say you're okay with each other... intimately and you wish to continue having more of the same with them.. and hopefully they feel the same way towards you.....

Agree with gents above .. No1 sums it all up very well .. there can be so many different reasons for fears, but the only way to fight with - you must face them, analyze them, and don't keep your fears only for yourself, to allow them to turn into nightmares - talk with your beloved person. Once you're able to put your feelings into words, your fears will lose all the power .. make a good laugh about your fears ..

Joel, showing vulnerability is the definition of intimacy. Without it, we are all just procreating robots.

What does "happy enough" mean to you? Comfortable in your current circumstances, resigned to your position in life? Is it happiness or complacency?

No one has ever successfully argued this fact:

"FEAR IS NOTHING MORE THAN A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE"...…...do you remember when you were five and asked about "the Boogeyman"? Scared most of us at that age, might be under the bed? In the closet?...…….Then we turn nine or ten and laugh about it because we learn (knowledge) that "the Boogeyman" doesn't exist.


To truly face the fear of intimacy is to experience the same. Slowly, at first, possibly with the typical guarded heart. However until you have the experience (knowledge), that fear will more than likely perpetuate.