We need to be known

I’m tickled that several people enjoyed (and unfortunately could relate to!) my last post about the struggles of online dating.

It stinks!  So why do I and so many others choose to put ourselves through such an ordeal?

The obvious answer is because we hold out some amount of hope that we can find someone to share life with; but what, ultimately, is behind our drive to find a partner (or apparently as we learned in the case of our polyamorous friends, multiple fish-loving partners or something, but I digress)?

There are several answers – we want companionship; we want physical intimacy; we want a genuine partner who helps us through life whom we help in turn; we want to expand our collection of aquatic gimps (OK, OK, no more fish jokes).

I think there’s something more foundational underneath all that, though.  At least, I know there is for me.

And it’s the same motivation behind why I write, why I put so much energy into trying to guide people who fundamentally disagree on topics like religion and politics to be able to see the world through the eyes of someone else.

I desperately want you to know me, because I’ve felt misunderstood for much of my life. 

Almost certainly for me this stems back to my early childhood and the routine bouts with panic and despair I’ve written so much about.

Panic attacks and even depression make absolutely no sense to someone who hasn’t felt them themselves.  Bless a former girlfriend of mine who seemingly never suffered depression, because she couldn’t wrap her head around what was wrong with me when in those moments.

And that is a good example of why I’ve felt alone and misunderstood – when I was a child, I had no words to describe what I was going through when caught in the grips of panic, and I felt trapped because I couldn’t express myself well enough or think my way out of the panic cycle in order to find relief.

And so I’ve become deeply aware of how little any of us actually, genuinely take time to truly try and know other human beings, to understand them and get a sense of what it’s like to be them.

I think there’s an ache within each of us to truly be known.  We all seek intimacy and connection from a desperate hope that another human being might for a moment know what it’s like to be us.

Because it’s impossible for anyone to truly know that – no one feels things exactly the same way and with the same intensity as you do, and no one thinks in exactly the same way I do; no one but you can get inside your own head and heart.

We use words to describe feelings that we think everyone shares, such as “happy,” “sad,” “excited,” but because we only live inside our own bodies, we don’t know – not with certainty – what anyone else’s experience of any of these emotions is actually like: maybe someone’s “happy” is more extreme than another’s; maybe some people have deeper and darker expressions of “sad” than others; maybe someone doesn’t actually ever feel genuinely “excited,” but they pick up on social cues to understand when they’re supposed to have that feeling.

To know and be known is a basic need, and it’s rare to find someone who is genuinely interested in trying to know us intimately.

That’s why sex can be so special, and why it can become utterly transcendent when it creates a moment in which two people really feel connected and – looking into each other’s eyes, sharing gentle smiles and soft caresses, thinking only of giving to the other – let themselves be open, vulnerable, loved, and known by another in such profoundly intimate ways.

Even still, as many of us have learned painfully firsthand, as vital as it is to feel connected and known by another person, it’s impossible to be fully known because, again, no one is able to live life inside our own hearts and minds.

For that reason, there is a loneliness that transcends another person’s ability to fulfill, and I think one of the causes (and there are many) of so many marriages failing is because we are trying to find a deeper intimacy in another human being that none is ever able to provide.

There are several bases for which religion exists, many dating back to our attempt to explain the then-unexplainable in a universe that is so big and mysterious, but two powerful motives are the seemingly innate human desire to worship something as ultimate and to, indeed, feel intimately connected to and known by a god in the ways no human can fulfill.

As we prepare for the Christmas season, I think that’s an enduring factor in why the story resonates so deeply with us. 

As a Christian, I admit everything about the religion is absurd – unless, of course, it turns out to be true.  The idea that an all-powerful God would actually become human out of a desire to establish a more deeply intimate and eternal relationship with us – to know firsthand what it is like to be a human; to choose that kind of solidarity in ways that we as humans can’t dream of achieving with each other – is both ludicrous and titillating.

The need for this kind of intimacy feels, deep down, as if it’s something we’re hardwired for, yet it’s also something we can never find through other people. 

Not only does Christ mean that God is intimate with our experiences – our pain, joy, and mundane daily rituals – but that the God who actually does know each of our hearts, minds, thoughts, wishes, and fears now also can personally relate to that knowledge through God’s own human experience through Christ.

And if the Christian belief that Christ physically rose from the dead and ascended to eternally dwell with God the Father is true, it also means that God is now and always part human, just as the presence of the Holy Spirit within our hearts means that we are always part divine.

This story provides us with one of the most precious yet difficult things to find in this world: hope.

Hope that the injustices of the world and the impurities in our hearts will be set right.

Hope that we are, in fact, not as alone as – in our weakest moments – we fear we might be.

And hope that there is Someone who not only can know us as intimately as we crave, but who wants to.

This side of eternity, it is an immense blessing to find another human who chooses to love us as deeply and intimately as they can, and many of us legitimately put a lot of effort into trying to find someone willing to be our partner in this journey.

But that kind of relationship is ultimately an echo of a deeper intimacy that can only be provided by Another.