Who said proximity without intimacy is hell

Want to display this quote image on your website or blog? Format of this image is jpg. The width and height of image are and , repectively. This image is available for free to download. It isn't you, ' he says, as though you're to be comforted by the irrelevant role you play in your own life.

Finally, I asked how you got a boy to like you back. She said, 'Just be yourself, ' as though I had any idea who that might be. Even now, he is every blue blazer getting into cab, every runner along the river, every motorcycle coming and going. Once again, what I felt was superiority, and then, quickly, emptiness and jealousy. No, the jealousy was from not being a part of something. It was from lacking the hope bordering on certitude that everyone around me seemed to have.

Not exactly it, but quite like it. They would probably be right, but perhaps we can hold this aside for a moment. I was so near something—the Obama movement—but had no connection with it. So my defense mechanism was to feel superior. Superior that I was not sucked in, that I was able to keep my head about things, to avoid irrationality and hero worship. And even though I call it a defense mechanism, that really is what I feel, even now.

And there I was, thinking that I was choosing low taxes and free markets and conservative judges. I had been show-offy and self-indulgent, which suggested that I cared what Clarence thought, and I didn't want to start caring, or appearing to care, what any of them though. I wanted to give people only my facade.

So, I thought to myself, did Dante really say that? After a little web hunting and then some , it looks like a lot of people have picked up this meme from the book Eaves is likely referring to: Melissa Bank's The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing , which made it into Oprah's book club and spawned various erroneous Dante citations.

Some people only describe it as being from an unnamed book ashamed of the title? Interestingly, the only use of the phrase clearly predating the book is a guide to BDSM. All of that said, it's a pretty intriguing idea.

But is the absence of both proximity and intimacy worse? I'd say probably yes. The terms are terribly vague, but if I think empty subway train versus subway train full of strangers, or empty library versus library full of strangers, the one with the people always wins.

Or, metaphorically, if I think about knowing a subject superficially versus not knowing about it at all, the choice seems obvious. I suspect many people have latched on to this in the context of romance, but it probably isn't so true if one gives it more thought.