He was an observer of people.. he knew that much.
It was not an unusual habit, he also knew this, yet he was uncomfortable with his vicarious pastime none the less.

When he saw them, usually about twice a month, he was especially fixated.
He had to be careful not to withdraw too far into himself and maintain a head nodding interest in the usually rather banal discussions.
Sometimes he would snap out of his musings to see everyone in the group staring straight at him..
“Well Martin, what do you think” she had asked.
The fact is he didn’t know what to think.

He saw them later out near the pool fence. They were arguing in that ‘trying to keep it quiet’ type of way. She wanted to go home early he surmised and their usual antagonistic posturing and discussion had begun. He could never understand why they were together. In all the years he had known them, he had never observed more than a thinly vieled loathing between them; an entrenched mutual disdain.

On his own way home much later, he wondered about the safety of boredom and the relative security of familiar discontent. There were many things it seemed that he did not understand.