I've Been Told I'm Intense. They're Right.

I've been told more times than I can count: you're intense.

Yep. I sure fucking am.

Let me tell you what that actually means, because it doesn't mean what most people think it means when they say it, usually a little sideways, like it might be a compliment if I angle it right but probably isn't.

"You're intense" means my passion makes people uncomfortable. I am fiercely, unapologetically passionate about the people I love and the life I am building with them. I hold a high bar for my relationships, not because I'm impossible to please, but because I believe that love has a backbone, otherwise it's appeasement. So I show up fully, I ask for full in return, and I don't quietly lower the bar so everyone can breathe easier. Sometimes that costs me and I've made peace with that.

"You're intense" means I say out loud the things other people think and then swallow. In a world that has gotten very good at looking away, at glossing, at managing, at performing okayness while the actual thing burns, I am not willing to be a bystander. I name what I see and I face what's in the room. I bring my truth into spaces where truth is not always welcome, and I accept the consequences of doing that. This is not a small thing. 

In 2026, in this political and cultural moment, saying the true thing; the full thing, not the edited-for-palatability thing, is an act of resistance. I want my anger to be useful. I want it to burn clean and point somewhere worth going.

"You're intense" means I hold myself and the people around me accountable for what we say and what we do. It isn't enough to have good intentions if the behavior doesn't match. We are all responsible for our choices, our missteps, and the new choices we can always make. I believe in integrity, not performance. I believe in authenticity, not posturing. That makes some people very uncomfortable. I understand. I am not everyone's favorite flavor.

And here's what I also know: when I raised my boys, they said "I hate you" more times than I can count, which translated, in real language, to I don't like that you are holding me accountable right now. When I was dating, I watched the possibility of a new guy collapse under the weight of my standards; not because my standards were wrong, but because the match wasn't right. I have been told to tone it down, to soften it, to be less. I have been asked, in a hundred different ways, to make myself more comfortable for someone else to be around.

I am over it. 

I have been done with it for a while.

Because here's what “you’re intense” has also built: friendships I would walk through fire for. A marriage that is the truest, safest, most amazing thing I could have ever dreamt of. Relationships that get more extraordinary every day, not just survive; because everyone in them has agreed to show up, to be honest, to do the work. That is the return on the investment of being difficult. That is what it costs and what it makes.

I love my intensity. 

Not because it's easy, because it isn't.

And I am not going to tell you it is. 

But because it is mine, and because it is true, and because I have learned that the alternative is a smaller life. A quieter one. A safer one. I have seen what playing it safe costs, measured in the things left unsaid and the risks left untaken and the years spent waiting for permission to want more.

That is a cost I am not willing to pay. And neither should you.

So. What does it look like to be more intense?

Not louder. Not harder. Not more demanding of other people. Intensity, done right, is about the relationship with yourself; with your standards, your truth, your willingness to be uncomfortable in service of what you actually believe.

It looks like saying the thing you have been softening. The thing you've been circling, qualifying, hedging into something smaller and easier. Say it once, clearly, and let it stand without the apology chasing it.

It looks like holding the bar, especially when holding it costs you something. When someone you love is asking you, explicitly or implicitly, to lower your expectations of them, and you feel the pull to do it because it would make things easier right now, notice that pull. And don't.

It looks like naming what you actually see, even in rooms where naming it is not welcome. This is not about being combative. It is about refusing to pretend the thing isn't there.

It looks like being done with performing okayness when you are not okay. The performance is exhausting, it costs more than it saves, and it teaches the people around you that they don't have to meet you honestly either.

It looks like deciding, really deciding, that you will not spend the rest of your life making yourself smaller so others are more comfortable. That decision has to be made more than once. It has to be remade, every day, in the small moments that don't look like big choices but are.

And it looks like accepting that you will not be everyone's favorite flavor. That some people will find you too much. That "too much" is often just code for more than I was expecting, more than I was prepared for, more than I am used to women being.

You were not built to be easy. You were built to be you. 

And you are magical.