Are You Avoiding Intimacy?

In this episode, Kate & Eric explore how we avoid true intimacy and the impact of pseudo-connection on our lives.

Topics:
➡️ The illusion of intimacy in today’s world: why it’s easy to settle for shallow connections.
➡️ The power of vulnerability: why real conversations fuel life energy and connection.
➡️ Practical steps to deepen relationships: going beyond transactional interactions.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Eric MacDougall
Today, we're talking about intimacy and like, how we avoid it, right? And so I don't want to go too deep into, like, this idea of attachment to yeah and, like, avoid an attachment, right? We're not going to go too deep into that, because that's a real thing. And some people do you know, have kind of fear of intimacy, because they feel like they let it in. Eventually it's gonna be gone. And right, yeah, so that's we can get into attachment theory another time. We can talk about that, what it's like to be avoided and attached. But what I really want to talk about was like, how, you know, a lot of us now, in this day and age, a lot of people in long term relationships, really, a lot of people in general are not only finding new ways to experience what they need to experience to not actually be in intimate relationships, but we're actually creating like this, this pseudo intimacy, like almost this, like fake type of intimacy that seems to keep us going, but isn't really, actually, you know, helping

Kate MacDougall
us, yeah, like it's fueling us just enough. It's like, you know, putting $5 in your gas tank way back when, when $5 actually filled your gas tank up a little bit, like, it just keeps you going enough, but like, you have to keep going back for more often. It's like, constantly, constantly, yeah, and

Eric MacDougall
you can start to convince yourself that like things are good and like life is good, but really it's because for a lot of us, you know, in the way that we've created our lives now, we can actually function on very little intimacy, right? Because, you know, back in the day, if you think about it, a big part of what was giving us, you know, like kind of dopamine and a lot of these beautiful hormones, the kind of hormone, all that kind of stuff in our bodies was because we were creating intimate relationships. And now we live in a society where, you know, most of what we're getting is just constant dopamine kicks like a crazy rate all the time, through our phones, through TV, through pings, through bangs and Bengals and all that stuff. But what's also happening is we don't always then feel the need to be intimately connected with others. Yes, right? And so, and we can get into like different ways that we do this, but you know, one of the best examples that I always think about is that how easy it is now to just like create a relationship with people you love just through text. Yeah.

Kate MacDougall
And I would say even further than that, having relationships with people or having this idea that you have a relationship with somebody through Facebook. Mm, hmm. Like or Instagram or whatever, like, whatever. Social media platform, right? Showing my age here, Facebook, yeah, I know I love it, but you have this idea of, oh, yes, I've, I've seen my nieces grow up. I saw my, you know, my best friend's daughter grow up. And when you think about it, you're like, Wow, if I truly, truly think about it, I haven't seen my my friend's daughter, for example, in person more than twice in her life. Yeah, and she's now six years old. Wow. Okay. I said, thanks, but, but, but it's for, ya know, like it really is, and like, and I'm just as guilty of this. I know one of my best friends has two kids, and I have seen her son once, and he's pushing three Yeah. And like, well,

Eric MacDougall
you've seen once in person, once in person, yeah, photos, photos of him. I

Kate MacDougall
feel like I'm Yeah. She talks about him. I feel like I know him because, you know, we've created this relationship. But you know, unfortunately, I go to her house after he's in bed, and I don't ever, I've never seen him, but you know, I have this idea that, like, oh, I have a really close relationship with this family, but it's like, really, I don't, because I've not made any efforts to go when the kids are awake, or I've never, you know, planned things to do for our two families to come together. It's like I have a good relationship with my girlfriend, but I don't have a relationship with her family, although I've convinced myself in my head that I do because I see her kids growing up on Facebook? Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
yeah. And I think, you know, again, like, I don't want to bash a lot of these things that we have have been able to create connections. I mean, the reality is, I run a group and have connected with men all over the world through the internet. I'm fine with bashing social media, to be honest. Like, I don't think that's beneficial, but I want to get into that. What I really want all the listeners to start to take away, or take anything away from this episode, is that we've really lowered the bar for what and what it means to have an intimate connection with another person, right? And so not only are we doing this in our marriages, right, some of us are doing this with our kids, with our parents, with our siblings, and we've really kind of lowered this bar for like, Hey, this is, this is fine, right? This is good. Like you said that this is just like the old car where we're putting $5 in gas just to get us somewhere. And that's fine, when really you could create the type of connection that would feel like, you know, driving a jet on rocket fuel. And, you know, some of us experience those connections, right? This level of closeness, this level of knowing, this level of, you know, I was laughing with, you know, we've talked about this before on the podcast, but like, it's crazy to me that, like, I'm gonna meet men in a few weeks, right, who are coming from all over the world for this retreat that I'm running, and I, like, genuinely love these men. I'm gonna hug them. I'm gonna tell them, I love them to their face, like they're part of my life. Well, you tell them you love right? I do not, but I'm gonna also say to their face, yeah, I mean, but it's like, for me, it's real. Like, this is a real thing to like, to like how excited I am to touch them, to hug them, to be with them in the same space. And so while it's great that we meet online and we create these relationships online, and we talk on the phone and we do these things, it's really important to understand that that doesn't replace like, genuine human connection, but

Kate MacDougall
I do think, you know, there are ways that your group takes intimacy, human connection in a a whole other level. You know, there's a lot of groups you can join online that, you know, things are everything's done through like, you know, Facebook homepages like you're posting, people are replying, commenting, you know, and that's the only relationships you're creating. Is you post something, people comment, and that's it. Whereas what you know, I think, is what goes, you know, brings your group further, is you actually have calls where these guys are meeting. You encourage them to exchange numbers. A lot of them are meeting in person in areas where they're living, you know, like some of them are, you know, living somewhere in Europe, and they happen to be close, so they meet together there. And the ones who are in Australia are meeting somewhere in Australia. Like there, there are people all over the world meeting in these groups in the larger setting, but then meeting in person closer so you know, we're not bashing online. Yeah, there's room for it. But what happens is, when in your personal life, you're replacing your connections and your relationships with people. You're convincing yourself that you have great connection. Because, you know, every morning I kiss my husband, every night before bed I kiss my husband, that's the intimacy. We're very you know, yeah,

Eric MacDougall
we're having communication, even though it's about the kids and the work and it's very transactional. It's very surface level. But

Kate MacDougall
when you think. Think about it honestly. When you sit and think about it like, When is the last time you opened your heart up to your spouse? When is the last time that you were truly honest about something that's been on your heart? Yeah, to your spouse, to a person you're in relationship with, anybody, yeah,

Eric MacDougall
I was gonna say too. Like, when's the last time you were genuinely curious, yeah, about what was going on in your spouse's life? Yeah?

Kate MacDougall
Not just, Hey, how was your day? Oh, good, good. How was yours? Oh, it was great, yeah, Molly. Molly brought some cupcakes to work again to get and, oh, that's nice, you know? Like, that's Yeah, okay. You guys talk every day. That's fine. But when's the last time you talk to your husband like, Hey, are you enjoying your job? Are you truly happy where you are? Is this where you thought you'd be five years ago? Like, and these are can be scary conversations, because sometimes you're like, I don't know where this conversation's gonna lead. And what if his answer is, no, I freaking hate my life, and I want to, you know, but it provides for our family. Yeah, it's like, yeah, these are scary conversations to have, and being intimate can be scary, but what's happening is we have all these ways to replace intimacy in our lives that's so easy, it's so much less vulnerable and so much less, you know, in quotes, dangerous, because we can predict the outcome. I know that if I go scroll on social media, I'll watch some videos, they'll make me laugh. I follow certain accounts that I really enjoy watching. But then, you know, for me to go up to Eric and be like, Hey, can we have a little fun here? And, you know, can we play this game? I might get a no, or I might get a I'm too tired, or I might get a some sort of rejection, rejection. So I'm like, I'd rather just laugh with my Instagram than go and sit and ask Eric to possibly laugh with him.

Eric MacDougall
You know, and women are doing with pornography, yeah, right? Where it's like, there's this thing that's super easy, accessible. I get my rocks off, the edge goes away. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
I don't have to feel rejected by my wife. That's right, my husband. I don't have to try

Eric MacDougall
to improve that part of my relationship. I just get to outsource this thing, right? And I think, you know, the message we really want all of you to get from this episode is to really reflect on your own life and start to think about, hey, like, where's the bar for me when it comes to intimate connection? And when we're saying intimate connection, we're talking about like, like, genuine closeness, emotional closeness, like genuine knowing of another person. You know, the example I always use is my relationship with my mom over the past few years. So my mom and I, like, we've always kind of butted heads our whole life, and there's a lot of love and a lot of respect, but we never, like, saw eye to eye on things. So certainly, our relationship was very surface level. And I think, like, two years ago, I finally said, like, my parents, getting older, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen in the future. I want to connect with them. I get to know them. I want to talk to them, like, on a heart to heart level. And that was like, you know, kudos to my mom, you know, having a son who's like, I know we haven't really connected a lot, but now we're going to be talking about these, like, real things, right? That can be intimidating for her, and, yeah,

Kate MacDougall
especially for her, because she's she, she's more guarded, yeah, very much more guarded than than you are

Eric MacDougall
exactly. She's not in in a intimate relationship, right? She never remarried after her my mom, her my dad, uh, divorced. And so just understanding that, like, that's not her jam, like she doesn't want to be having these really deep connections about her life and what she's feeling and how she's thinking, that's scary to her. And so, you know, I want to celebrate her and her ability to truly listen to me and talk, you know, understand the intention that I had in starting to have these conversations, but then trust that. Like, okay, like, if I want to connect with my son, like, genuinely, I'm gonna have to open myself up. And it's gonna be scary to open myself up and talk about some of the pain that I experienced raising him, and he might have some questions to me that I'm not ready to answer, and to either put up a boundary or challenge myself to answer them. And I will say, you know, like, when my mom and I get together now, like, it's the two of us, there's like this, it's even hard to describe. There's like, this connection, this closeness, you know, I remember, like, last time I was there for the summer and and we had a beautiful conversation during the day, and then we had dinner, and all my extended family were there, right? My siblings all there were kids. So it can be chaos. We're all together. There's a lot of people, sure, yeah. And then when she left for the night, you know, I was just having the driveway, and I said, Hey mom, you know I love you. And I hugged her, and she hugged me, said, I love you too. And we just, like, embraced each other, and then, like, for a long time, and then about a minute in, like, we both started crying, and we're just like, holding each other, and like, nothing needs to be said, yeah, it's just like I feel close to you, and like I love you and you matter to me and and I think this is what we're lacking, like for me after that moment, like I felt so connected, so alive, so good, like, and I think this is what we're lacking in our lives now. And it's really important to understand like we are doing this to ourselves.

Kate MacDougall
Yeah, I think giving ourselves permission to slow down. I. To, you know, put our phones away. Really test that discomfort, really push through that discomfort and allow ourselves to, you know, call that friend we miss, not just text them and, hey, how's it going? Like, legit, call them,

Eric MacDougall
yeah, even if you don't miss them, yeah, yeah, right. Like this, like, you shouldn't be waiting to miss your friend. Yeah. Like, just call them. Yeah,

Kate MacDougall
right, calling a friend you haven't spoken to in a long time. You know, sitting down with your husband and saying, Hey, I really want to connect with you tonight. I want to talk like, can we put our phones down? I have some questions I want to ask you. Yeah? You know, like, just having those conversations with people and putting yourself out there, that's scary and it's hard, but in the end, the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the less scary it becomes, and then you truly do feel this closeness. I know we often get comments on the podcast like, wow, I wish my wife and I, or my husband and I, can have conversations like you and Kate have. Well, this didn't come from like us waking up one morning and you know, having conversations like this, this is like years of practice, and there are some days where we're not talking like this, like, you know, honestly, if it wasn't for the podcast, there's a lot of ways, yeah, a lot of times we wouldn't talk this way. You know, we're getting better at connecting intimately daily. But that takes practice and it takes discomfort at first, and it takes putting yourself out there. It also takes time. It takes time away from the comfortable things, which is watching TV, scrolling on social media, you know. But in the end, what we notice is, after we record our podcasts, after we have those tough but you know, deep conversations after we have, you know, intimate conversations where we're asking each other questions and, you know, getting to know each other on a deeper level, we definitely feel more connected than the nights where we're sitting and watching a TV episode, either you're on your tablet watching TV and I'm on my computer watching TV, or, you know, you're reading beside me and I'm watching TV like whatever, like we don't go to bed, feeling The same as the days where we're actually connecting and having some raw, real conversation, yeah? And

Eric MacDougall
I just want to add to this, because I think this is really important to acknowledge, right? Because I'm sure a lot of listeners out there right now are like, Yeah, but like, my wife doesn't want to, or my husband doesn't want to, or, like, maybe you don't want to, right? Maybe you're like, I don't want to, yeah, um, you know, often I'll say this for me, but often when you're like, let's do this, like, there's an immediate resistance in me, right? Yeah, of course. Like, that's what I mean, I'm sure, even for you, right? It's like, maybe, like, the nights winding down, you got plan squash. And then I'm like, Hey, like, I'd love to talk to you about this idea, right? But you had, like, this idea that, Oh, I'm just gonna, like, wind down and watch the TV. And so you need to understand, like, there's gonna be resistance, but like, this is the path is to do it anyways. Yeah, right. The amount of times when you're like, I want to play this game, well, I already got this new game and, okay, it's really great I get new games. So she's like, I got this new game for us to play. We're gonna do this on Saturday night. And I'm just like, really, like, can't we just do something that's easy? Blah, blah, blah. Every single time we play a game, it ends, and I'm like, that was awesome. Like, thank you so much for doing this. This was so fun. I'm so glad you did it. But, like, it's like everything else, like, it's going to be hard before it's easy, and until you experience the benefits of it. Well, rarely is there a reason to do it,

Kate MacDougall
yeah, and it is, it is so easy. And I know even like as a parent, like connecting with your kids, man, like you're exhausted, you get home and your kids are whining and complaining. You made dinner. You spent an hour making dinner. They're whining and complaining about dinner. You ask them to take a shower. They're whining and complaining. They want to get in a shower, so last thing you want to do before they go to bed is connect with them intimately and be like, Hey sweetie, I love you. And scratch your back and I'll sing you a song, read a book together, and let's cuddle. And let's, you know, spend some time you're like, it is now 730 and the lights are coming off. Good night. La. Have a good sleep. But you know, I laugh because, you know, we do this with our kids. It's very easy to do with kids because they oftentimes don't know enough to be like, Parenting is hard. Yeah, Parenting is hard. I want to cry no, but like, no, but like, I think is one of the relationships that we push aside very. Very easily, because you're like, go play. You know, you have a ton of toys. Go play, go play, go, especially

Eric MacDougall
in that crucial moment, like you're talking about, like a bedtime Yeah, right where it's like, I just want this to be over

Kate MacDougall
with. Yeah, exactly. But I find like, yes, as much as we do it as parents, we also do it with our spouse, we do it with our friends. We do it like the number of times that my girlfriends and I have made plans and canceled because, oh, we're too tired. We're too tired. But the days we did push through in the days we were like, I'm tired, let's just, you know, at least get together. Let's just do it for an hour. It'll be an early night. Like, we end up staying up, like, for four hours and, like, not regretting it the next day. Like, at first, yeah, it's hard. And at first, yeah, you're like, Oh, I just want to sit on my phone and scroll. I just want to die in my bed and sleep for like, six days. Like, don't wake me up. Nobody touched me, nobody talked to me. But there is no better feeling than that human connection, and it really does bring this beautiful life energy to you. So in the moments where you feel yourself resisting it, where you feel yourself like, oh, I have 1,000,001 things I'd rather be doing right now than this, just remember that, you know, these are the moments that are going to bring you life energy. And as much as it's hard going into it, you will get this automatic dopamine kick, this automatic life energy like thrown at you tenfold, and it feels so good. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
and I want to be really clear here, as we're kind of ending the episode, so first of all, pick up your phone and call a friend. That's like our challenge for you this week. Okay, go for it. So there's somebody in your in your life that maybe you can just pick up the phone

Kate MacDougall
call. Don't text them first to be Hey, where are you available for home? No, call them a good time to talk. That's

Eric MacDougall
me dialing in, exactly. And so that's our challenge for this week. But I want to say, you know, you talked about, like, life energy. And often times, like, people are like, people are like, you know, oh, life energy. That sounds so Woo, woo, but whatever. But what we're talking about here, yeah, sure. But like, what I'm saying, like, when you're creating intimate connections with people, and you're having that connection, you know, the bedtime connection that we're talking about having with our kids, where we take that extra time, we scratch their backs, we're close, we're together. The ones that we do as a couple, the ones are different. Like, the life energy we're talking about this is like happening in your body. This is like, endorphins that are happening in your body that help you feel better

Kate MacDougall
if you think it's Woo, woo, yeah, read the sign, like, read

Eric MacDougall
the science behind it. Because I just want to say that, because, like, it's called Real so it's scientific fact that intimate relationships will lead to a better life, and so the quality of relationships leave the quality of your life. So if you are not improving your relationships, it makes sense that you're probably feeling some sort of unhappiness, unfulfillment in your life. If you're actively improving your relationships. I've been like, on this kick for improving my relationships last five years. I feel awesome, like I didn't I say it sometimes too like to you, like I didn't know life yet this good, right? And so just really understand that, that it's not just like woo, woo, life energy, stuff, you will feel better if you invest in real connections with other human beings. If you don't want to feel better, fine. Don't do it. Stop listening to this podcast. But if you do want to feel better, this is a big and easy way to be doing it. Put yourself out there. Create intimate connections, call a friend, open up to your spouse, hang out with your kids, hang out with your friends. It is such an important part of how we show up in relationship, and it's a huge benefit, not only to us, but to the people we love you.