Esther Perel's talk examines the inherent tension in modern relationships between opposing human needs—security (safety, predictability, belonging) and adventure (novelty, risk, autonomy). She argues that what attracts partners to one another can also cause conflict, and that the meaning of "intimacy" has shifted in Western culture toward a demand for deep emotional transparency she terms "into me see," where partners are expected to share inner feelings and validate each other to soothe existential aloneness.
Chapters
That the very thing that leads to conflict is often the very thing that we were originally attracted to. Every one of us here comes into this world straddling two sets of fundamental human needs. We all have a need for security, for safety, for dependability, for predictability, for belonging, for continuity. But we also all have an equally strong need, men and women and everything in between, for adventure, for novelty, for mystery, for risk, for the unknown, for discovery, for exploration. All of us, from the minute we come into this world, need to negotiate our need for security and our need for adventure, our need for connection and our need for autonomy, our need for togetherness and our need for freedom, our need for love and our need for desire. And many of you may have found partners for whom their proclivities matched your vulnerabilities, so that they can bring to you the parts that you want more of, or at least think you want more of. Although many times you will then find them about the very thing that you chose them for. Because we all know that the very thing that leads to conflict is often the very thing that we were originally attracted to. For the first time, we are a lot more free, but also a lot more alone. And now one particular word is going to change its meaning radically. And it's the word intimacy. In most of the world still today, intimacy generally means that we share the vicissitudes of the everyday life. We milk the cows, we feed the children, we deal with the droughts, we deal with the floods. But today, in our Western culture, intimacy is into me see. And into me see means that when I talk to you, my beloved, you better look at me in my eyes for the mirror neurons and no clicking away. So when I talk to you and into me see, what is it that you're going to see is that I am going to share with you my most priced deep assets. And they're not my camels and my hurts. They are my feelings, my worries, my anxieties, my aspirations, my dreams. Into me see, I will open myself up to you to come in. And as you come in, you will validate me, you will reflect me, and you will momentarily help me transcend my existential aloneness. Welcome to modern love.
