I’m up again. It’s 2:17 AM. I observe this pattern every single night, every night. The house is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. She’s asleep, her breathing a steady, shallow rhythm I’ve cataloged over years. It’s a comfortable sound. Predictable. And that’s the problem, I think. The comfort has become a kind of anesthetic. Tonight, I was looking at her, earlier, before she fell asleep. She was watching some home improvement show. Her face, in the glow of the screen, was placid. Content. And I just… felt nothing. An absence. Not hostility, not even boredom, just a profound, unsettling emptiness where something else, something deeper, used to reside. Or perhaps, something I *believed* would reside there. We had dinner. Roasted chicken. She made it, like she does every Tuesday. It was good. Consistently good. We talked about her day — the new neighbor’s dog, a problem with the HOA’s landscaping committee. My day — the quarterly reports, the new project proposal. Our conversations are like carefully constructed bridges, each span connecting to the next with perfect, utilitarian precision. They lead somewhere, technically, but never to a place of genuine, spontaneous connection. It’s a transactional exchange of information. Efficient. When we were younger, in college, I remember feeling… a specific kind of desire. A yearning. Not just for physical intimacy, though that was part of it, but for a fusion. A meeting of minds that transcended words. I sought a partner who would ignite something within me, a spark that would challenge my perspectives, demand more from my intellect. I pictured passionate debates, shared intellectual pursuits, a constant, invigorating push-and-pull of ideas. This was a non-negotiable criterion for my future. A CORE requirement. And then I met Sarah. She was kind. Genuinely, inherently kind. She laughed easily. She was pretty, in a soft, approachable way. She made me feel… safe. Not challenged, not ignited, but profoundly safe. And at 28, with the pressure from my parents, from society, the implicit understanding that it was TIME to settle down, to build a life, to achieve the next milestone – marriage felt like the logical, RESPONSIBLE next step. The safe option presented itself. The pragmatic choice. I remember the proposal. It wasn't grand. A quiet dinner at a nice restaurant. I had the ring in my pocket, feeling the weight of it. My heart rate was elevated, not from exhilarating anticipation, but from a mild anxiety regarding the performance of the act itself. She said yes, of course. Her eyes teared up, and I felt a wave of relief. The objective was accomplished. The next phase initiated. Now, every morning, I wake up beside her. I make coffee. We commute in separate cars, to separate offices, in separate directions. The suburban tableau. The manicured lawn. The two-car garage. The kind spouse. It’s all… exemplary. The external data points align perfectly with the societal ideal. And yet, there’s this persistent, low-frequency hum of something missing. A calibration error, perhaps. I look at other couples sometimes, at company events or even just at the grocery store. I observe their interactions. Sometimes I see a quick glance, a shared smile that seems to communicate volumes. A spark. A flash of something untamed. And I categorize it. Is it genuine? Is it performative? Is it a transient neurochemical event that eventually dissipates for everyone? I analyze it as if it were a scientific phenomenon, something I can study and dissect from a distance. Because if I admit it’s real, and I don’t have it… then what does that imply about my own operational status? I suppose I married for comfort. For security. For the perfectly ordered suburban life that, on paper, is objectively good. A good life. A stable life. And I have it. I have achieved it. But the deep, almost primal craving for that intense, intellectual, emotional connection, the one I used to articulate so clearly in my youth… it’s still there. Buried, perhaps, under layers of routine and responsibility. But it’s there, a dormant algorithm, waiting for input that will never arrive. And I don't know what to do with that knowledge. Or how to process this data. Every single day, every day.