Fierce attachments/ Vivian Gornick

"Well, I started out saying that although it was painful to me that his feelings hadn't lasted ten minutes in the real world I could absorb that, and live with it. What I couldn't absorb was his plunging us back into the cruelty of old-fashioned man-woman stuff, turning me into a woman who waits for a phone call that never comes and himself into the man who must avoid the woman who is waiting. I said I thought we'd been friends with a mutual interest in being civilized, reliable people even if we were in love."
"That's good," Marilyn says cautiously. "Very good."
"Now here's the brilliant part. I asked how it was possible that he hadn't been able to put himself in my place, imagine the pain and apprehension I'd be feeling, not be compelled to pick up the phone if only to say, 'Listen, I can't go on with this.' It was this I found offensive, even frightening. Now listen to this. I wrote: That failure of the sympathetic imagination, when it occurs between two people who have been intimate, is like natural disaster to me. It fills me with dread and amazement. The world then seems a barbaric place, without any hope of tender regard.' Isn't that great?"

I may not like sleeping alone, but I like waking up alone.