Henri Nouwen quote on loneliness

I've signed up to get Henri Nouwen meditations every day. I'm actually thinking that this may be too much an going onto the once a week mailshot may be more digestible. The other day I got this, though there's no indication which book or where it's from.

When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, "Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me." But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no mature human relationship can develop. Clinging to one another in loneliness is suffocating and eventually becomes destructive. For love to be possible we need the courage to create space between us and to trust that this space allows us to dance together.

I once knew someone who exemplified the condition described here; the more they tried to make friends the more their desperation pushed people away. Part of the problem seemed to be that relating out of loneliness objectifies others as ciphers to meet our needs and we behave in all sorts of litle ways as if the other person is not people in their own right. This leaves them feeling used or suffocated.

I longed to be able to say to the person I'm thinking of that Jesus' words about losing our lives if we try to save them applies as a general rule in relationships; the more we seek to get people to love us the more we, in effect, push them away. We have to give up on making friends in order to make them; that is we have to relate to others for their sakes rather than for ours, but in so doing 'all these things will be added to us aswell'
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