Intimacy
"The deepest need of man is to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity. We think to be a grownup we must be independent and not need anyone, and that’s why we’re all dying of loneliness.
Man needs someone who cares about him. Just one person, but someone who really cares. If everyone had just one single person in his life that says, 'I will love you no matter what. I will love you if you are stupid, if you slip and fall on your face, if you do the wrong thing, if you make mistakes, if you behave like a human being –- I will love you no matter,' then we would never end up in mental institutions.
We need to be loved. We need to be felt, we need to be touched, we need some sort of manifestation of love. I truly feel that if there is, in this world, one person whom we can touch totally, unabashedly and unashamedly we will never die of loneliness. They tell us that intimacy is out of date, but I say that intimacy is absolutely essential or we are all going to go mad. Real intimacy that is where we give and receive without exploitation. I don’t want to use you; I want to love you. I want to experience you; I want to know you, to smell you, to feel you. I want to grow with you, dance with you, cry with you. To strive for intimacy is a risk and may bring pain, but that is the only way we can ever see ourselves and to grow is in an intimate relationship. Intimacy is not simple. It’s a great challenge to our maturity. It’s our greatest hope."
- Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
