zucherman:

“You can be at certain parties and not really be there.  You can hear how certain parties have their own implied ends embedded in the choreography of the party itself.  One of the saddest times Joelle van Dyne ever feels anywhere is that invisible pivot where a party ends — even a bad party — that moment of unspoken accord when everyone starts collecting his lighter and date, jacket or greatcoat, his one last beer hanging from the plastic rind’s five rings, says certain perfunctory things to the hostess in a way that acknowledges their perfunctoriness without seeming insencere, and leaves, usually shutting the door.  When everybody’s voices recede down the hall.  When the hostess turns back in from the closed door and sees the litter and the expanding white V of utter silence in the party’s wake.”

-David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest.