Intellectual intimacy isn’t always easy to find, but it’s even harder to sustain. Sometimes it feels like you’re always one layer too deep for the room, waiting for someone who won’t flinch at the weight of your references or the vulnerability of your curiosity.

There is a good deal of implicit sentiment around relationships that troubles me, because it assumes a fundamentally defensive posture: You have to be happy first, you should date around a lot, you should reject quickly and on small pretenses, you shouldn’t take dating too seriously, etc. For some even attachment is a dirty word! 1 All of this is... See more