I hate to say it and I hate to know it but if you crave intimacy and deep relation you truly have to muster the courage to go first.

Something I forgot to mention here is that before even trying to rearrange what's happening 'out there' you muster the courage to go first within yourself. Everything you seek - give it first to yourself in sensation, in imagination. Don't be stingy with yourself. It doesn’t make sense to have a codependent relationship with reality or need appearances (how things appear from moment to moment) to validate you. This is fighting with shadows, that are ungraspable and bound to change. I think when you are approaching others from this false self/ego space that functions with the idea that 'you' are somewhat deficient, inferior, or lacking, you go within and address that. Your internal shifts are not happening in isolation - they're ripples in the same 'water' which everything is of