What criteria do you use to judge how honest and vulnerable you can be with another?

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Good question, Alex, thanks for pointing it my way.

I personally wrap up these criteria into the generalized context of intimacy. Contrast intimacy with sex, I can have intimate conversations with my mom but I’d never get sexual with her! I have intimate conversations with random people at the bar or coffee shop, at work, men or women, it doesn’t matter.

In fact, if a conversation does not move in that direction, towards more and more honesty and vulnerability, it generally isn’t an interesting conversation for me. These things allow more of your being to be expressed, and I’m certainly not worried about ‘sharing too much’ or whatever.

So generally I’ll move at the speed of whatever my conversation partner of the moment is comfortable with.

When I was a kid my life was full of the kinds of kids who would take selfish advantage of any kind of honesty and vulnerability you’d put out. I often retreated into novels where adults would write about adult interaction.

Being that many of these adults knew what kids were dealing with and that they would be reading, there would often be examples of strong kids not really ‘taking the bait’ when selfish kids would try to get them to sink to their level.

I took this to heart and tried to make honest, friendly, adult relating the norm in my life. You share vulnerable moments and your own weaknesses and selfishness. And the authenticity of such encourages your conversation partner to open up too.

So it’s not so much a choice about who, but rather about when. I’m always looking for opportunities to open up an intimate space, or to deepen one that’s already there.