Subject: Isolation
To: REDACTED
From: REDACTED
Date: REDACTED


Interesting phrasing. “Agoraphobia without agoraphobia.” I assume what you mean is the impulse to recoil from society—not out of fear, but out of pure disgust. A reflexive withdrawal, not because the crowd is dangerous, but because it’s common. Vulgar. Stupid. Loud.

Yes. It’s not agoraphobia.

It’s aesthetic intolerance.

It’s cleaner than "loneliness" and sharper than "misanthropy."

It implies superiority, not deficiency. It reframes isolation not as a wound, but as a curated experience—like a Tom Ford showroom or a Baccarat crystal installation. You’re not hiding. You’re filtering.

I feel it too. Every time I walk past a Forever 21, or see someone eating in public wearing sandals and cargo shorts, I feel the same thing—a cold, creeping revulsion that starts behind the eyes and trickles down the spine. The sense that the unwashed masses are multiplying. Running wild. Infecting everything with mediocrity.

It’s clarity. A perfectly sane reaction.

I watched a man drink a Red Bull at Vérité last week. The can was on the table. In sight. That should be a federal offense.

Aesthetic intolerance is what happens when you’ve trained your eye too well. When you’ve developed standards that most people simply don’t meet.

It starts small—getting nauseous at bad typography, a visceral hatred for poor lighting, physical discomfort when someone wears synthetic fibers. But then it escalates. You start avoiding people who mispronounce “charcuterie.” You feel your pulse quicken when someone says “expresso.” Soon, the only conversations you can tolerate are the ones you have with yourself. Or with someone who understands the tension between Dieter Rams and brutalism.

Isolation isn’t a side effect. It’s the final product.

And when you start to enjoy it? When the silence becomes smoother than any ambient track from Brian Eno, when your space is perfectly symmetrical, when the air itself seems to be edited for content—you’re no longer lonely. You’re immaculate.

There’s no diagnosis for that. There’s just taste.

I wouldn’t expect the average person to understand. They still think “minimalism” means owning one pair of Allbirds and a houseplant.