Ari realized he no longer thought about people unless they interfered.
The observation came to him one afternoon while standing in line at a convenience store. Someone ahead of him laughed too loudly, voice cutting through the air. Ari felt the familiar tightening in his jaw, the brief flicker of irritation—and then nothing. The sound passed. The person became irrelevant.
He did not track their face. He did not wonder who they were.
They left his awareness the moment they stopped affecting his internal balance.
This, he understood, was disconnection—not the dramatic kind marked by loneliness or despair, but a clean absence of social pull. He did not miss conversation. He did not crave recognition. He did not imagine futures involving others.
Social absence simplified everything.
Work became purely functional. He spoke when necessary, listened just long enough to extract information, then moved on. Coworkers attempted small talk out of habit, not expectation. Ari responded with neutral brevity that discouraged continuation without offense.
They learned quickly.
The city rewarded his preference. Anonymity deepened as he withdrew further from relational spaces. He did not join groups. He did not linger in shared areas. He did not build routines that required coordination.
He existed independently of anyone else's emotional weather.
That independence felt right.
Ari noticed that social interaction introduced variables he no longer tolerated well—misinterpretation, expectation, unnecessary noise. Distance eliminated those variables entirely.
He preferred it.
The pressure cycles remained stable now, regulated by refinement and timing. Silence arrived reliably, held longer, faded slower. Between cycles, Ari functioned smoothly—working, sleeping, moving—without internal conflict.
He tested his preference deliberately.
One evening, a coworker invited him to join a group for drinks after a shift. The invitation was casual, unweighted.
Ari declined without explanation.
He felt nothing afterward—not relief, not regret. The choice registered as correct, then vanished from his awareness entirely.
Later, alone in his room, Ari examined the absence carefully. This was not avoidance driven by fear or inadequacy. It was selection. He was choosing the conditions under which he functioned best.
People, he realized, demanded adjustment.
Silence did not.
The realization settled comfortably.
Ari did not feel hollow in his disconnection. He felt efficient. Without social obligations, his energy remained contained, available for regulation rather than repair.
He lay down and slept easily, untroubled by dreams or intrusive thoughts. When he woke, the world felt orderly.
Disconnection, he understood, was not deprivation.
It was alignment.
And he had no desire to return to anything else.