About Ari... what an interest in beauty. He often inwardly beamed, though outwardly, he felt assured that his interests were seldom mirrored. Music, books, art, film. He had good taste, even when it meant bad taste. So what? On a larger scale, what difference did any of that make? He didn't know what he wanted to be. Sadly, he began to feel as though he may be missing that boat. More often he noticed more and more gray hairs. What had he done with his time? Day after day of pointless jobs, too many now to recollect. Night after night interactions with the closest of friends and the truest of long term relationships, fool-proof, guaranteed to last, to be the one, most of whom had been gone for ages. The years of his life had passed by more rapidly than anticipated.

Sitting, comfortably, with stability and confidence in yet another dead end job, making nice with lovely people, who will never see into the nooks and crannies of his aspirations or fears. Polite faces to polite faces, polite faces to demanding faces, polite faces to blank faces. He held the receiver far enough from his ear that the ringtone was barely audible, staring into space, mindlessly counting, and promising to himself, one more ring and I'll hang up. One more ring and I'll hang up. Hoping both that the call would be excitedly received, but hoping more that it would be lost, forgotten, and returned at a time when coming together would be inconvenient, impractical, just a little too late for tonight. Sure, how nice to have that connection, how much nicer to head home to drink those same beers, hear those same songs, alone.

One more ring and at least he'd have extended that hand, and then off the hook.

Was he even counting anymore? Ok, time to hang.. "Hey, what's up?"  Damn, he'd hesitated. Just when the whole idea had lost its appeal. "Hey. How's it going? Got anything going on tonight?" "It's Ari. Yeah, I don't know, what are we into tonight? Ok, yeah. No, we aren't doing anything. Wanna do some drinking?" "Yeah, I get off around 11. Got about a half a case, probably some vodka.. no ice. Wanna hang out around 11:30?" "He's got some vodka, no ice. Ok, we'll grab some ice." "Ok, cool. See you around 11:30." "Bye." "Ah, this'll be fun," thought Ari, lighting up for a moment, then resting back in his chair, with his head tilted a little too far back, his eyes closed a little too long. He stood up, not opening his eyes until fully on his feet. He threw on his old coat, glanced at the shop door, went out back and had a smoke. Although he usually had an easy time joining in with conversation and discussion, he considered himself to be much more of a listener, in general.

There were times when he would rather not speak at all, to see how much others would say when given the opportunity. He found himself actively thinking about what others said, how much, how often, analyzing. It seemed to him that by consciously and actively listening to others, he learned more, took more from interactions, than he would if he were more compelled to share what he already knew. This may sound pretentious. It was certainly not intended as a stance of arrogant judgment. Also, this is not to say that he was never extroverted and talkative. Much contrarily, there was often a great deal that he considered sharing with others, however, his self-observed tendency was more that of contemplation. Ari was pretentious. He was judgmental, pretentious, bored, and boring.