SAN MATEO, CA—Having already spent a considerable amount of time quietly examining items around the apartment and standing on the periphery of others’ discussions until walking away under the pretense that he needed to refill his cup of beer, local introvert Dennis Brewer reported today that there are only 20 minutes left before he gets to leave an acquaintance’s house party. “I told myself I’d stay here until 8:30, and I already killed about 15 minutes avoiding conversation by circling repeatedly around the table of hors d’oeuvres to appear occupied, and another cumulative half hour pretending to text friends, so I just need to make it a few more minutes,” the tense man told reporters while sifting through a pile of coats on the host’s bed as if he was having trouble locating his jacket, an activity he planned to perform for the next 10 minutes or until someone else entered the room. “If I walk back and forth between the conversations in the kitchen and the living room for a little while and go back to the bathroom one more time, then I’ll have been here long enough to tell the host that I have some work to finish up before bed and that I should probably get going. Then it’s just a matter of slipping on my shoes and waiting to tie them until I get out the door so that not too many people see me leaving and ask why I’m heading out so soon.” At press time, sources reported that Brewer’s plans for withdrawal were dangerously imperiled by a partygoer’s insistence that the whole group hit up a nearby bar.

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