FOMO is your brain insisting the best party is always the one you’re not at.

The event you are missing gets to stay perfect in your head, because imagination leaves out the awkward parts, the long wait, and the group that left early. Meanwhile the thing you are actually doing arrives with all its real dullness attached. The comparison is rigged before it starts. You are holding a highlight reel of something that has not happened against a live feed of your own Tuesday.

When the ache shows up, ask what the missed thing usually looks like at hour three. Then pay attention to where you are, since it is the only place you can be.