Does Familiarity Breed Contempt?

Does Familiarity Breed Contempt? | |
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|We have all heard the idiom ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, but what exactly causes our regard and respect for another person to |
|suddenly turn into dislike? How is it that we can despise the very same person that we proclaimed our love for just a short time |
|before? |
|In fact, becoming ‘familiar’ with someone should be natural and normal in order to bond and create intimacy. Yet, the contempt does|
|not arise from the familiarity itself but when boundaries are overstepped or not drawn clearly. |
|In the Greek language, the word for familiarity ‘ekeoteta’, means ‘I feel at home’ and is used with a positive meaning. However we |
|can too often slip into a negative aspect of familiarity, when someone talks and behaves in such a way they would as if they were at|
|home; casual, open and sometimes too frank. For example, when the shortcomings of others are mentioned in public, or the tone is |
|too casual, or private or confidential issues shared inappropriately. |
|Often in the early throes of a love relationship or friendship, we feel safe and even enjoy opening up to another, and each feels |
|the foundation of their relationship gives them the right of expression. But by your allowing them to become all too familiar with |
|you, they feel they have this right to say things others cannot. This is where you have let the other person in too close where |
|they are privy to your secrets. And when the