half-intimacy

Updated: June 13, 2025

I felt thankful for the thought that Vivian was returning to an element in which he might repurify his mind, refit himself for that sphere to which he belonged, thankful that we might yet meet, and our present half-intimacy mature, perhaps, into healthful friendship.

Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton - The Caxtons — Complete

Perfectly well he saw that he was being cornered in an untenable position of half-command, half-intimacy. Without apparently exercising any wiles, this woman was none the less involving him in bonds like those the Lilliputians threw round sleeping Gulliver. Anger welled up in his proud heart that anyone much less a woman should thus lower his dignity. But still his manhood dictated courtesy.

George Allan England - The Flying Legion