For Pierre, it was one of those days when nothing worked out. He was late for class, spilled a glass of water, lost his key and a few other annoying but unmentionable circumstances occurred. Pierre was in a bad mood. It felt like the world was against him and he interpreted every interaction with him as hostile.
He had tried approached a group of fellow students over the last few weeks, summoning up all his courage and overcoming his shyness to do so. A fellow student in the group seemed to be interested in him, but loose conversations did not turn into deeper ones. The fellow student in question was accepted in his group, which occasionally organized activities that seemed fun. Pierre would have liked to have been invited to one of these, but hadn't yet plucked up the courage to ask if he could join them. The other students in the group didn't seem particularly interested in Pierre and he wondered if the loose connection to the more talkative student was enough to legitimize his joining. He also wondered whether he himself would enjoy participating in the group activities, as he found the other participants despicable. But he felt a longing for company. When Pierre entered the dining hall of his university around noon, he looked around while he pretended to be busy so that no one would notice his loneliness and lack of belonging. He saw the aforementioned group sitting in the corner of the dining hall. It looked like everyone was in a great mood. He heard some of the participants laughing. Pierre headed towards the group, somewhat indecisively, looking down so that it looked like he was heading in their direction by chance. He kept looking up briefly, hoping that the more talkative fellow student would notice him and invite him to join them. When Pierre looked up again, he saw the aforementioned fellow student turning his head away from the direction Pierre was coming from. He made no effort to greet him. Had he seen him? Now he was saying something to the group and suppressed laughter pierced through to Pierre. Were they laughing at him? Pierre changed direction inconspicuously and walked past the table, pretending not to have noticed the group at all.