“Are you reading alone?” one asked. “I could neverrrr,” the other said, and then uttered the universal mean girl slight: “I wish I had your confidence.”

This criticism confuses me. Of course I’m reading alone. The last time I read in a group was probably my freshman year in high school.

And we’re not talking about Colleen Hoover’s latest or a romantasy title; the books that qualify are capital “L” literature: Faulkner, Nabokov, Franzen. The heavier the better.

I’m running into so few readers these days, especially in the younger generations, that to most of them there is no difference between a Faulkner book or JK Rowling. They have so little contact with books they can’t even sort them into categories.

I’m interested in knowing what other people are reading when I see them and will glance at the cover to see if its something I might want to add to my own reading list. However I do nearly all of my reading on an ereader so I can’t say I return the favor. I never bother the people reading though. While they are sitting there in the same room with me, their minds are in another place, another world. Why would I want to drag them out of that chosen alternative to this hard reality?

I read Infinite Jest and have a 8.5" penis but Please do not DM me your breast photos.