"Our world glamorizes personal intimacy. But intimacy is more talked about than experienced because it is a painful process. It involves risks, possible misunderstandings, vulnerability, perhaps even losing something of oneself to the other person. Relating to the other as person means giving him or her free space to be truly a person. It means foregoing the temptation to impose our own will on the other. There is joy in personal relationship, but the joy comes by way of death to self. Giving, listening, and personal intimacy are painful processes, but they are also renewing processes that form our communal character."

Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology [HT: Faith Dance]