I thought intimacy was all about who you kissed, or who you held hands with, or who you let run their fingers across your skin. I thought intimacy was more physical than anything, and that it was something you felt on your body but not on your heart. I thought intimacy came into our lives at random moments, like waves crashing on the shores of our private lives, tsunamis that create goosebumps and interlocking fingers and mouths moving together.

But that was until I met him.

    Now, don’t get me wrong; intimacy can be all of the things listed above, but it is also so much more than that. And it’s okay if you don’t understand yet, because I didn’t understand intimacy until I stared into his eyes.

     They’re blue. His eyes are blue, and I had seen him hundreds of times before, had looked at his eyes hundreds of times before, but something about the way he looked at me that night set my insides aflame. He stared into my eyes, and neither of us said a word. I watched his pupils expand after a while (seven seconds to be precise) and realized that my knees were knocking against his. A moment after that realization, I noticed that our breathing seemed to be in synch. I would inhale, then he would inhale, and I would exhale, then he would exhale. Everyone else around us was talking, engaged in their own conversations while we were lost in each other’s eyes and I was okay with that, and he seemed okay with that too. I blinked, and then he blinked, but he still stayed quiet.

     There was some sort of pattern in his eyes, like a ripple that made its way from the inside out. It made his eyes seem as though they were dancing, moving slowly with each second ticking by. I could see the features of his face soften in my peripheral vision, and his smile dropped just slightly. Our knees knocked against one another again. I gazed into his eyes and wondered how much it would hurt when he finally looked away, or if it would even hurt at all, or if he would ever look away.

     It was like he was trying to say something, trying to communicate with his eyes; they looked as though they had so much to say. A merely indescribable feeling crawled underneath my skin, mixing with a sort of nostalgia that I can’t quite explain. My arms were suddenly covered in goosebumps and my heart started beating just a bit faster. He leaned in slightly and I didn’t take my eyes off of his. His smile dropped completely now, and it was like his eyes were pleading to be understood.

And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I realized what intimacy really was.

     When I was staring at him, it was like we were the only two people on the planet. I didn’t think about anything else, didn’t care about anything else, but my mind was completely focused on him. And my senses came alive at his gazes, my skin tingling and my chest tightening and my cheeks reddening. And I felt a completely new feeling, one I still cannot describe, that took my breath away for just a moment but then settled into my bones comfortably. And I wanted to read deeper into his eyes, to see into his soul and his secrets and he himself. And I wished that I knew his mind, that I knew what he was thinking and what he consistently thought about and how he feels and how he has ever felt. I wanted to know him, every last little thing about him, and only him.

     Isn’t that what intimacy is all about?