When everyone’s drunk or getting there on a Saturday night and you’re not, there’s an island you inhabit where the intense loneliness of being surrounded by other humans stings less than during the sober, awkward daylight hours. This is because the innate ability of humans to sense another human’s loneliness is compromised, meaning they don’t treat you like a lonely person like they do when they see you in the grocery store, avoiding eye contact (thank God) or at the grad party or at church or on the playground the first day of school. As if.

Instead, they treat you like a tempora...