How do you human relationships help us develop?

In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck’s main characters, George and Lennie, are a travelling pair of workers. Lennie has a mental disability that prevents him from remembering anything and causes him to panic and lose control of his strength. Lennie could never survive on his own, but George keeps him safe by practicing a routine of telling him about their fantasy of owning a farm together: “‘O.K. Someday- we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs an–’ ‘An’ live off the fatta of the lan’”’ (pg. 14). This is a happy routine that the two characters exercise this a lot throughout the novel, creating that safe space in Lennie’s mind.  Steinbeck also uses loneliness as a key theme in this novella, and while George no doubt protects Lennie,  Lennie also protects George from isolation: “‘With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody  to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys get in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.’ Lennie broke in. ‘But not us! An’ why?  Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got to look after you, and that’s why’” (pg 14). Their relationship sustains them both, and ultimately, George sneers at Lennie that life would be so much easier without him, but one needs human companionship in order to survive both mentally and physically.