By now, I bet almost everybody knows somebody who has joined a social networking Web site ... Americans aren’t exactly suffering from anomie. If anything, a surfeit of connectivity is the curse of the moment ...

We have, in effect, defined intimacy up.

That is not exactly what you would expect in an era of constant communicating. Yet could it be precisely because we’re more plugged in to a disparate array of people who supply us with information when we need it, offer advice and keep us intermittent company, that our standard of genuine closeness has become more exacting? It’s not just that we’re too busy for more than a select few confidants. We may be choosier too.

When one-dimensional, functional relationships are ever more accessible, the desire to be known and to know another from all sides and from inside out may be lodged even deeper.