Risking Being Vulnerable with a Partner

There is a price to pay for being tough and unyielding. It is the same price that one pays for acting cool, or aloof. It is the loss of all the juiciness and humanity that comes along with being a real and vulnerable person, warts and all. It also involves the loss of any opportunity to find an intimate partner who can mirror what is real in us, rather than what is adopted to try and impress.

Being confident, glib, slick...all these qualities act as a kind of social lubricant. They do a great deal to help sell cars, win promotions, and get boyfriends and girlfriends. This is the mode of popular choice for the world because it looks good and doesn't involve risk. But what in life is really of value when nothing is risked? The intense experiences of our lives always carry some underlying fear; and there is a certain exhilaration that comes along with feeling afraid to be seen for who we are and then moving through that to be met by someone on the other side - someone who sees us.

Putting on a smooth and confident face can attract a partner, but something in the experience will, of necessity, be hollow because we will always be wondering what might happen if the other ever saw us in the way that we naturally are, without any puffed-up persona.

What can be miraculous is that moment when we allow ourselves to be genuine and natural instead of adopting a front intended to win them over, and then the other person responds with a deeper level of sincerity from their own place. It is as if we've given them permission to do so. Our willingness to take a risk emboldens them to do the same.

Playing it safe with a partner might insure that we never get deeply hurt, but it can also insure that we never feel very deeply in the relationship one way or another. Passion grows out of real feelings, and if we're detached or in any way acting "above everything" then we aren't in our feelings. The same thing that defends us also deadens us to the potential for real joy with a partner. Also, it allows little room for trust - for how can one trust a relationship whilst never daring to put it to the test?

To be real - in all of life and, perhaps, most intensely within intimate partnership - involves being open to the possibility of being hurt. And risking pain allows also for a whole depth and breadth of possibilities that would otherwise remain hidden so long as we're playing it safe.