“There were bars for cruising and bars for conversation, but in either kind of bar the restless hunt for something besides conversation gave friendships an ephemeral fluidity that alcohol rendered even looser and more transient. You could ‘know’ many people for years without knowing a single hard fact about their lives, a glimpse through the keyhole into their reality might be offered once or twice in a decade. The rest of what you knew was a compost of gossip and inference and whatever the person told you.”

–Gary Indiana, Three Month Fever