He approached the table to let her know he was
around and would look at the piece of art but

that she should finish lunch with her friends.
He thought that was the polite thing to do.

He knew her two companions — one with dementia
and the other just looking that way. “Let sleep-

ing dogs lie,” and “Avoid a fool in his folly,”
came to mind so he decided not to engage but

to just move along, only later to be told he
was criticized by one lunch companion as be-

ing Mr. Hoity-Toity-Too-Good-To-Say-Hello. He
looked across the room and saw a former friend

now an acquaintance and decided to engage. The
acquaintance commented on the man’s extraversion

as if he were diseased, perhaps a gregarious
and supercilious leper, in comparison to the

acquaintance’s own eminently preferable intro-
version. He concluded that introverts really

do believe they are superior. To engage or
not to engage…. Some days neither pays.