The Intimacy Gap and the Triangle of Friendship

By Georgia Peters-Gill

The Intimacy Gap

Many people, particularly in the modern day, long for deeper friendships. This has been referred to as ‘The Intimacy Gap’ (Nelson, 2016), the gap between the intimacy that we have and the intimacy that we want.

Whilst many of us feel this way, it is not something that is often readily admitted. We feel ashamed, or flawed, or needy. Yet, in admitting to ourselves that we may be experiencing an Intimacy Gap, we are taking the first step towards deepening our friendships.

I had always felt ashamed of feeling lonely. I feared that others would label me a ‘loner’, or think that I had no friends. I thought that to acknowledge the Intimacy Gap that I was experiencing, was to admit that there was something wrong with me. I had not been granted friendships that felt good, therefore I must not be made of ‘friendship material’.

In reality, the quality of my friendships was not a reflection of my worth. A friendship is a string of actions which reaffirms a love shared between peers, not an award for a predetermined state of being.

At some stage in my personal development, I understood why I had not achieved my goal of deeper friendships. Instead of taking actions which would build friendships that felt good, I had been trying to hide the things I perceived made me an ‘unattractive friend’.

In doing so, I was also depriving my current friends the ability to truly get to know me. Perhaps the reason I was feeling unloved by my friends was because I wasn’t giving them the opportunity to love the parts of me that I hid so effectively?

The Triangle of Friendship

In Shasta Nelson’s 2016 book Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness, she identifies three elements to building friendships: positivity, consistency and vulnerability.

Positivity refers to the ratio of positive to negative interactions that you have with your friend. Science indicates that healthy relationships involve a ratio of 5:1 for positive and negative events, which means that our interactions with our friends should be more positive than negative on average.

We can choose to have positive interactions in our friendships by cheering for our friend’s successes, expressing gratitude for their support of us, sharing humour, and letting them know that we are thinking of them.

Consistency means putting in the hours. When friends can rely on each other to put time aside to spend together, they are more likely to feel safe whilst they are in each other’s company. You may choose to build trust by scheduling a weekly catch-up with your group, or a monthly coffee date for example.

Intimacy is finding a balance between oversharing before the friendship is ready, and undersharing despite the friendship being ready.

It may be too early to share the raw details of your life with a friend if you don’t yet share a positive and consistent friendship. Intense emotions can be overwhelming for friends when the boundaries of the friendship are unclear. Trust takes time to build.

On the other hand, your friendships may be limited if you keep your authentic self too inaccessible for fear of judgement, or rejection. We can’t be accepted for who we are if we are not seen, or known. Yet, acceptance is one of our biggest needs as humans. This is why taking the brave step to share our vulnerabilities, the successes in our lives, and the things that mean the most to us, may be one of the most important steps for our health and happiness.

Now that I recognise that I can choose to deepen my friendships, I feel empowered to be able to meet my need for greater connection. My friendships are not a reflection of my worth, but a tribute to the actions I choose to take. If you want to learn more about friendship, I recommend having a read of Shasta’s book, and leaning into the opportunity for self-exploration and growth.