No, but you want to be, like the author regretting the passing of abandoned warehouses full of heroin and AIDS. You yearn for the beautiful ruin that is always so much more pleasant in retrospect. You desire the pallor and waifish gauntness of Dumas' Camille but forget the hacking, blood-soaked cough.

Loneliness is not the evocative language of a distrusting barista. It's calling up your ex-roommate's ex-girlfriend because she's the only one you know in town and you're so goddamn alone you'll take anyone. It's opening a care package intended for a former resident and keeping the stuffed easter bunny you find inside but justifying it because that bitch skipped out on $400 in utility bills that mean you have no heat. It's walking a mile to the computer lab so you can have conversations with strangers on Usenet because your classes are full of Koreans and Nigerians who wouldn't study with you even if they spoke your language because you're the wrong color.

I've been lonely. It's bullshit. You don't invoke Darger to give your social awkwardness street cred.