The emotional intimacy dimension of love is best characterized by feeling love for someone rather than being "in love" with them. It mainly focuses on liking, friendship, trust and feelings of emotional closeness that result from being able to share one's deepest thoughts and feelings with a partner. Intimacy is achieved through a process by which one comes to know one's partner through increasing levels of self disclosure of one's thoughts and feelings. During the early stages of a relationship when the participants are still getting to know one another, strong passionate emotions may result from increasingly intimate levels of disclosure. Later, after the partners have gotten to know each other well, feelings of closeness, friendship, warmth, and caring will tend to take over. For emotional intimacy to show, both partners must be understanding, open, supportive, and must feel like they can talk about