This isn’t new. It reminds me of Nora — that dinner, downtown by the bus terminal, where, halfway through the meal I excused myself, reached into my pocket, and realised I’d left my bus ticket on the table instead of the fifty. I had been Distracted. Detached.

Present in body, elsewhere in mind. It felt like she was delivering some kinds of eulogy for one of her famous tiktoker or makeup artist(or whichever "trendy train" she was obsessed with at that time)

I joke that in my defense she’d carried some cash and learned never to go to dinner penniless — but beneath that humor I am seeing in myself apattern: people aren't easily gonna be adjusting to my inattentiveness.
The truth is harder to admit.

I don’t just space out because I’m bored. Nope... A bored person doesn't set up the date, plan everything to the letter and pays transport

I space out when things become charged. When intimacy becomes real. When someone is asking — without saying it directly — for my full presence