On Loneliness

One is often loneliest in the presence of others because their indifference throws the futility of one’s efforts at self-sustenance into relief. (If you spend a party reading in a corner, you come to see, no matter how good the book, that you are not fooling anyone.) --Agnes Collard, The New Yorker, Sept.25, 2021

This writer is not attending my best kind of party.

Egon Schiele, sketch for "The Friends," 1918.