My mother told me it was contagious, her proclivity for loneliness. When I was a boy, I couldn’t quite describe that emptiness in the pit of my stomach, that perpetual knot in my throat, that inexorable desire to be a nuisance to those who were sick of my company, that self-hatred knowing that people were, in fact, sick of my company. I was eighteen when she told me, shortly after my aunt passed away. She went to New York for a work trip, and I was left alone, left to my own devices. Just a...

The bar was eerily empty. I was, unfortunately, the first to arrive, which left me with the task of finding a comfortable enough table for my friends. I looked around as nonchalantly as possible, inexplicably embarrassed as I turned my head right to left, eventually deciding on a large booth in a somewhat desolate corner. I sat down, took out my phone, and tapped absentmindedly, having nothing of importance to look at. After a few minutes, a young woman walked up on the bar’s makeshift stage,...