They chatter endlessly about bridge, boys and food-
They seem so happy-
They don't listen
Just one thing thrown on top of another
So insensitive.
I try to join- try not to be dull-
A strain
Bucking the current.
Left feeling empty and unproductive
Why--
Because I know I fail-- why do I fail-- I even tried so hard not to be dull. Don't l realize that it takes endless pushing-
Does the conversation have to grow for me to feel that it was progressing and that I didn't fail-- Then I guess if you say that maybe I just hide into deep conversations because they don't make me feel as though I failed. It is admirable to talk to someone about how they feel--debate about religion and use mystical language. They will praise you for this.

I feel I fail in talking about trite things because I feel as though I'm standing at a doorway- I'm very fat and broad and my arms are hanging down loosely at my side. I do not blend with their pettiness or baseness. Yet if I were to try to be base, I would feel that I was failing if l were to be boring too.

The answer is to do a bit when I feel like it and then get away and get fresh air in my lungs. Yet because they are always together, they will become friends--I will have missed out on what l want- friendship- friendship is a deep thing. Then it will all get to be a jumbled mess in my mind. Like before a race, l always think the water will be rough. l went to a mixer at Harvard and the very word mixer brought to me confusion. It wasn't confusion at all.

You see I think that the friendship that these people have built up requires sparkle- that's because it is confusion in my mind. Yet it is not a literal confusion- it is the day by day endless chatter building up to friendship.