The ideas of privacy and intimacy are very important at the company The Circle but not in a way many people would think. In normal everyday life privacy is seen as a right that we all have thanks to our constitution. The only time this right should be stripped away from us, is in the time where there is a threat to national security in some way. There is also a certain right to intimacy since us as humans have the right to choose who, when, and how we are intimate with any person, animal, or thing. This being said at The Circle, intimacy and privacy are seen as things we should actually share even though this seems contradictory since privacy is the action of keeping something hidden rather than sharing with others.

The hope for the workers at The Circle is actually that there are no secrets which almost strips the workers of their privacy. This lends to their stance on intimacy which is they want everyone to interact in the community and be intimate in a way where you are friendly and social with other Circlers. The hope of almost no secrets is shown in how everyone wants Mae to share everything about herself and how they try to strip her of her privacy. Then to top it off at the clinic Mae is given a smoothie that has a tracker in it that can allow them to know everything that is going on in her body. This idea of privacy seems nonexistent at The Circle and the idea of intimacy is one that is almost over stressed. The Circle seems be backwards in a sense because in most companies they stress privacy of material and try to limit the intimacy of co-workers to just a professional level.

This is shown in how Mae’s co-workers begin to get mad at her for not sharing things like her interest in kayaking with them. There is a creepy expectation of sharing your intimate things like the wish that she would’ve posted about her dads MS. This is where the connection of privacy and intimacy is seen because the Circle wants everyone to be intimate by showing things most people would prefer to keep private. They also stress how much their workers interact socially and even rank people and reward when you share about yourself or toss away privacy to reach their goal of intimacy. The craziest part of it too myself is that Mae is so on board with the whole process of losing her own privacy and being more intimate in her workplace.

The Circle has a very distinct connection between intimacy and privacy unlike most institutions and especially workplaces in everyday life. I find it very crazy how Mae is able to go along with this ideology being implemented by The Circle and cannot see how they are brainwashing her and trying to take all privacy away from everyone as a claim toward intimacy. The connection between these two words and the ideologies affiliated leaves me with a very troubled view of what The Circle is attempting to do to its employees.