Intimacy arises when a relation’s unique shared ingredients feel essential

Evidence

An estrangement is wont to set in (whether as cause or effect is hard to decide) at the moment when this feeling of uniqueness disappears from the relationship. A skepticism regarding the intrinsic value of the relationship and its value for us adheres to the very thought that in this relation, after all, one is only fulfilling a general human distiny, that one has had an experience that has occurred a thousand times before, and that, if one had not accidentally met this precise person, someone else would have acquired the same meaning for us. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 398 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In the case of the stranger, the union of closeness and remoteness involved in every human relationship is patterned in a way that may be succinctly formulated as follows: the distance within this relation indicates that one who is close by is remote, but his strangeness indicates that one who is remote is near. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 388 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Continuing intimacy requires each person to remain partly indistinct; Loss of felt uniqueness breeds estrangement in intimate relationships — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 398; Marriages can misplace emphasis on trivial shared intimacy and lose substance (+2 more)

Related

• Marriages can misplace emphasis on trivial shared intimacy and lose substance (similarity 0.91)
• Loss of felt uniqueness breeds estrangement in intimate relationships (similarity 0.87)
• The stranger embodies a simultaneous union of closeness and remoteness (similarity 0.79)
• Continuing intimacy requires each person to remain partly indistinct (similarity 0.79)
• The most urban-inept strangers can be the most warmly treated (similarity 0.78)
• Closeness without distance is the individual’s real protection against social infringement (similarity 0.78)
• Strangeness is a specific proportion of nearness and distance (similarity 0.78)
• Shared universal traits make the stranger simultaneously near and far (similarity 0.78)
• Widely shared similarities cool connections into a sense of contingency (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Continuing intimacy requires each person to remain partly indistinct #contradicts (0.85)
• Loss of felt uniqueness breeds estrangement in intimate relationships #complicates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 398
• The stranger embodies a simultaneous union of closeness and remoteness #exemplifies (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 388
• Marriages can misplace emphasis on trivial shared intimacy and lose substance #complicates (0.72)