sex and intimacy

(Just, before you get all excited or get your hopes up, this post isn't going to be about sex in the physical sense of the word- if you're looking for that, I'm pretty sure you can find it by googling sex and zen. Hmmm, I wonder where that will lead you...)
So, for the last few weeks, we've been talking about sex and intimacy at Young Urban Zen. I have to admit that leading up to the first 'sex talk' I was totally expecting the talk to be about physical desires, sleeping with people on dates, etc. It wasn't at all; it was actually about relationships: being present to your partner, knowing when to stay/ leave a relationship, and a discussion of the blurry lines between friendship, romantic love, and intimacy.
During the second talk, we talked about not 'misusing sexuality' (this is one of the precepts). Again, the topic, at least in my small group, focused on relationships: when to be present to desires of another when you were in a relationship, how to know when it's just a desire and when it's genuine intimacy, etc.
I...have been pretty quiet throughout all of these discussions. I just don't have a lot of experience in this area so I didn't think I had much to offer. To be honest, I actually left the first talk feeling really left out. Not because anyone left me out, but because everyone was talking about relationships: boyfriends, girlfriends, true intimacy, connection, and I just thought, "Wow, I didn't know everyone had that. I definitely have not had that."
See, I've had boyfriends, sort of. And I've been in relationships, sort of. There have been three. But when I thought about those relationships I realized that none of them were intimate in the way that the people at Young Urban Zen were describing their relationships.
My first boyfriend was great- he treated me like a queen and taught me what it was like to be loved by another. Looking back on that relationship now, I realize that I never let him in. I was there, but I didn't share myself with him, not the parts of me that I was scared of showing. And when things got scary, I just got quiet and withdrew. He was sweet and patient and probably would have totally accepted those parts of me that I was afraid to share. But it didn't matter; he couldn't have accepted me because I wouldn't show myself to him, because I wouldn't share myself with him.

Then I thought about my next two relationships and why they ended and I decided, "Yeah, the reason those relationships ended was because those guys saw the real you."
See, I had come to some different conclusions about what had happened in my other relationships. I had decided that there was a pattern with me and guys. Guys meet me and think "Whoa, this girl is cool. She's not like other girls." And they have this interest and they ask me out and we start dating and then...
Then they get beyond that initial interest and get to know the real me, and then say, "Oh, not what I thought. Different, but not in the way I was hoping for." I thought it was this real me that repelled them, that made them lose interest. So I decided that in my next relationships, I should hide that real me, just keep up that inital persona that they seemed so interested in.
But looking back on this now, knowing what I know about me, it actually seems really unlikely that those guys lost interest because they saw the real me. Knowing what I know about myself- which is that I tend not to share myself with others- I can't imagine that they left becuase they saw the real me. I think it's more likely that the relationship fizzled because I didn't show the real me, because I wouldn't share myself with either of them. When I think about when the relationships ended, they did so around the time that things would have gotten intimate. But I don't think I was willing to get intimate. I don't actually know. I haven't seen either of them in years so I can't really ask, but I do remember this distance- this look on their faces of " Wish this would work out, but it's not going anywhere."
But I really did think that the reason it wasn't going anywhere was because they didn't like what they found when they got there, that they didn't want to go farther with this person they had finally seen. But I have to be honest. I have to see the role that I played in these relationships. I have to see that most likely, I was the one who stopped the relationship. I put up the wall, I kept them at bay. And I think that's why I haven't experienced intimacy in a relationship yet.

I don't really have anything more to say about this. I'm not using this realization to, like, guide my next move in terms of having an intimate relationship. I just...I kind of think that a lot of us are afraid that if we show the real me to others that they will run like hell in the opposite direction. But I'm beginning to wonder if that's really true- that maybe people want the opposite: that they want to see the real you, they want to see the unflitered, vulnerable, sometimes ugly, mostly truly beautiful you, because that's the one that's real.