Wife and Spouse Read NY Times

"When I ask you why you don't try to be more sociable, you ask me, 'Why bother? Everyone out there is the same. It's like a city of clones. Nobody is more interesting than anyone else.' But then you say you really would like to make new friends and no one ever seems responsive. Well, don't you think if everyone is equal there must be others out there who feel as you do? Someone may be hoping you would respond to an overture, but they also may be reluctant to make it."
"That's the real crux, I guess, fear of rejection, more than anything else. If I could do it over again..."
"For the want of a predetermined answer a friendship may be lost?"
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"How do you go about making friends?"
"I don't know. They seem to come to me."
"Hey, where does this fit in? 'The difference between Van Gogh and you and me is, that while we may look at the sky and think it is beautiful, we don't go so far as to show someone else how it looks. One reason may be that we do not care enough about the sky or for other people. But most often I think it is because we have been discouraged into thinking what we think about the sky is not important.' "
"What was that?"
"It comes a little later in the article."
"I thought he was speaking about how children in the third world haven't enough to eat."
"Shall I tell you about my childhood? Did I ever tell you the story of the broken macaroni for twelve cents a pound?"
"Shall I tell you again about cooking spaghetti in an electric coffeepot when I lived in my little room on the upper-Westside?"
"If I could do it over again..."
"Please, don't start with that old alternative reasoning."
"You wouldn't like to take a second shot? Maybe not have to survive lean days?"
"I would then have even less understanding for those without than I do at this point and believe me when I tell you I am not big-hearted. I laughed as loudly as you did when that comedian shouted, 'Move to where the food is!' "
"It was a stock response. All his other material was funny."
"I think experiences like cooking spaghetti in a an electric coffeepot are bizarre enough to put one metaphorically into another man's moccasins."
"Still, if I could do it over again..."
"You'd just fuck up something else further down the line."
"How can you say that?"
"There's always irony involved in those time travel stories."
"Oh, I was thinking of it more in terms of a done deal."
"What's the point? If you could do it all over, you would have to live through it again wouldn’t you? You can't do it over without doing it."
"Oh, I see what you mean. In that case, I guess I'll just take what fate has dealt me."
"Now about those children in the third world who haven't had the beauty of the sky pointed out to them. You know, if you were to offer your services, you could make a lot of friends."
"But you know what they say about friends in need."
"Right. Let me see that TV guide. Are there any good movies on?"
"There’s a good World War Two flick on at two-thirty. How about some Eggs Benedict for a late breakfast?"
"You prepare the hollandaise? I had in mind a romance or a comedy. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon."