“Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”Mark Twain · Scrieri și caiete · 1897 · Scrieri și caiete, caietul din 1896–1897
The person you see daily becomes background: familiarity kills the wonder and hides the very qualities worth seeing.
The joke ties two consequences of intimacy, one unpleasant and one natural, into a single sentence. The serious truth is that familiarity kills the aura: we see a person daily and stop noticing what is remarkable about them. Couples who have lived together for years can stop seeing each other's qualities, precisely because those qualities have become background rather than discovery.
Why it matters A reminder for long relationships: real closeness takes conscious effort, not just cohabitation.