This profound and deep human need for nurture does not change as we grow older. Not by a long shot. Adults who isolate themselves from the world, refusing so much as to own a pet, are likelier to die at a comparatively young age than those who cultivate companionship. Two independent studies, one done at the University of California at Berkeley and the other at the University of Michigan, found that adults who do not cultivate nurturing relationships have death rates twice as high as those with frequent caring contact. We wonder the same thing.
Relationships can be downright complicated.
For starters, our own family, the people we love the most, hold the potential for causing us the greatest pain. The friends we trust the most sometimes fail us the worst. Then there's the mystery of relating to the opposite sex. You'd think that after all the time we as humans have had on this earth, we'd have made negotiating our relationships a little easier. It's not that we haven't tried.