Party's Boring: This

Across the room, the host, Dave, was meticulously reorganizing his collection of vintage coasters, occasionally looking up to offer a lukewarm thumbs-up to no one in particular. There was no dancing, only the occasional "excuse me" as someone shuffled toward the door, their face lit with the quiet desperation of a hostage negotiation. Arthur took a sip of his lukewarm seltzer and realized that the highlight of his evening so far was discovering that one of the floorboards near the radiator made a slightly higher-pitched creak than the others. He began to wonder if he could slip out the window without anyone noticing, or if the sheer lack of momentum in the room had already fused him to the carpet permanently.

The music was a low, insistent hum of generic lo-fi beats that seemed designed to make people forget they were in a room together. Arthur stood by the snack table, staring at a bowl of pretzels that had seen better days, wondering if it was socially acceptable to count the individual grains of salt on each one. To his left, a man in a beige sweater was explaining the intricate tax implications of real estate depreciation in excruciating detail to a woman who had clearly mastered the art of sleeping with her eyes open. this party's boring