Relationships Are a Tango For Two (Privacy and Intimacy That Is)

Privacy is a tricky thing; in certain circumstances personal privacy is thwarted by the importance of obtaining information, like when the police conduct an investigation to bring down terrorism or in the placement of CCTV cameras to attempt to heighten community safety. And other times-- most of the time-- privacy is held at the highest of values, something that many people around the world fight everyday to protect.

Intimacy is equally tricky. Intimacy is something, similarly, that is yearned for most of the time, but is not necessary or needed every minute of every day. At times we wish for someone to hold close, to comfort us when we miss our parents or didn't do so well on a critical exam, or especially when a friend gloats about her boyfriend that brings her food when she prioritizes studying over nutrition. Yet, other times, we turn away from intimacy. We feel strong, independent, we prove we can handle ourselves, or intimacy is just plain inappropriate for the circumstances.

On the subject of relationships, privacy and intimacy share this same sort of confusing tango between not enough and too much. As solitary humans, privacy is held higher than intimacy; we keep certain aspects of ourselves at home, away from the eyes of others, a term Psychology calls our "Private Self". Once we enter an established relationship, however, privacy decreases, making room for greater intimacy between partners. One can think of the relationship between privacy and intimacy as a sliding scale: as we move into meaningful relationships, both platonic and romantic, the scale slides towards intimacy as the relationship progresses. This can happen at any pace, solely dependent on the persons involved, and their comfort and willingness to be open to each other. Conversely, the scale can move from intimacy to privacy as relationships change, develop, and dissipate. Problems arise, as seen between Mae and Francis, when we are pushed into intimacy sooner than is comfortable and therefore our privacy is breached.

Mae and Fransis' budding relationship comes to a grinding halt during Gus Khazeni's LuvLuv presentation. The entire basis of this new program is to search through any given person's entire internet history to give prospective lovers solid data to craft the "perfect date" scenario through information discovered about said person's preferences, medical history, so on and so forth. Mae, as any other person would be, is mortified by Francis volunteering to share all of her personal information with the group gathered for the presentation. All of her possible allergies are listed, as well as further receipts backing up the data, for everyone in the auditorium to see and, if this product is launched, potentially the entire world.

She mentions herself she "couldn't put her finger on" what had "so mortified her during Gus's presentation," but it is obvious she feels her privacy was disregarded (126). Yet, this brings another mention to the complexity of privacy; as Francis assured her, "everything that had been on screen was publicly available" already from her multiple social media profiles, so technically anybody could amass this information themselves, without the need for LuvLuv (126). Based on the logic of Francis, and Gus, and surely many other Circlers, Mae's privacy has not been affected due to the public nature of the internet, but Mae's personal feeling and basis of privacy has been hurt. We can then see how this perceived breach of privacy soils the intimacy between Francis and Mae, as Mae no longer feels her privacy can be trusted with Francis.

Through the fall-out between Francis and Mae, the intricate web between privacy and intimacy can begin to be unraveled. As we move towards intimacy, privacy becomes of lesser importance between those we love, but, still, without privacy, we feel we can share no intimacy with our partners.