Since I found that you want to read non-christian input for this:
That reminds me of how Islam encourages (interpersonal) relationships, many of the teachings (I think they're the third of the whole religion) are there to make the community more loving, forgiving to each other, encouraging the good behaviors and discouraging the bad one.
Sadly these days, most of Muslims are suffering from not or partly understanding these teachings, since it's a integrated (to avoid calling it perfect) religion... Doing some of it's teachings and ignoring others will turn either make the person/community too weak to defend themselves... Or turn them into killing machines... and you can see examples from both.
Now, since you talked about the relationship with the christ, we have "the relationship with Allah/God" which gives similar (if not better, depending on where you are in the believing spectrum) cure to loneliness...
So, yeah... I can relate. Sadly, it's hard to let someone who does bad things understand the "fun" in it.