He was right. But who had the time in this city to prolong a song and dance that took so much energy? If you don’t want to see someone again, ghosting was the quickest way to get that point across. I didn’t feel great about it. But that was why I had taken my break from dating in the first place. Regardless of what I did or didn’t do, it was always too exhausting.

“How was dinner with Sam and that gang?” I asked, changing the subject. Quinn had seen our old college crew the night before: Sam, his on-again, off-again partner, Evan and Claudia, a group of grungy hipsters who had never grown up, still bumming cigarettes on the back patio of Three Diamond Door every Saturday night, washing their sheets once a month. Giving each other stick-and-poke tattoos and STIs, sometimes at the same time.

“Sam has some artist in residency thing in Hudson starting next week. Maybe you could visit them when you see your mom. Claudia and Evan are the usual. They did ayahuasca together last summer and are convinced they’re soul mates.” Quinn gave me a little shrug.

“Wasn’t Claudia a strict lesbian as of last year?”

Quinn finished his coffee, discreetly turned up the sound of the podcast as if to tell me to shut up. “Sexuality is fluid. They seem happy, I guess? You should come out next time. They asked about you.”

I loved Evan and Claudia and Sam. I’d had my fun with them when we were in college; my own stick-and-poke tattoo of an obtuse angle on my left ankle, drug-fueled nights and shaved-head moments. But now it felt like I’d outgrown them. Work in some ways had made my life so small. The people I socialized with dwindled down to Quinn, to Huda. In some ways, though, I cherished that. I liked my own time. I liked my own company. Quinn sometimes said that if he didn’t live with me, he knew he wouldn’t see me at all.

He accused me, many, many times, of prioritizing work over almost everything, ignoring people with whom I’d had a certain intimacy the moment something else came along, when other goals and distractions overshadowed whatever fulfillment I got from spending time with them. I could be dismissive.