A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened . . . In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. (Schopenhauer, 1851)
No satirist understands the bizarreness of the human condition better than Luis Buñuel. In his 1977 film That Obscure Object of Desire he hilariously captures the conflicted nature of human relationships - our innate desire to be with another is perfectly opposed by innate desire to get away from them.
