Sometimes the emotional weaving is done through talk; often, it is not. Building a bookshelf for your lover, changing the snow tires on your wife’s car, and learning to make his mom’s chicken soup all carry the promise of connection.

When the impulse to share becomes obligatory, when personal boundaries are no longer respected, when only the shared space of togetherness is acknowledged and private space is denied, fusion replaces intimacy and possession co-opts love. It is also the kiss of death for sex. Deprived of enigma, intimacy becomes cruel when it excludes any

am often amazed at how couples can be up on the minute details of each other’s lives, but haven’t had a meaningful conversation in years. In fact, such transparency can often spell the end of curiosity. It’s as if this stream of questions replaces a more thoughtful and authentically interested inquiry.

how the wish for intimacy can lead a person to impose forced reciprocity as a way to stave off the threat of rejection.

Through sex, men can recapture the pure pleasure of connection without having to compress their hard-to-articulate needs into the prison of words.

For our purposes, suffice it to say that centuries of limited access to power have made us experts in relationship-building. The socialization of girls continues to emphasize the development of relational skills.

We no longer plow the land together; today we talk. We have come to glorify verbal communication. I speak; therefore I am. We naively believe that the essence of who we are is most accurately conveyed through words.

“intimacy became recognized as a ‘need’ only when it became more difficult to achieve.”

institution, love was optional. Respect was essential. Men and women found emotional connection elsewhere, primarily in same-sex relationships.