Desperate for friends

A middle-aged Japanese guesthouse resident regularly cooks pasta, spaghetti, garlic bread and serves wine to several people he considers friends. Five years after meeting him, the speaker receives no food, barely speaks with him, and says he never initiates contact. He admits jealousy when others receive attractive food, but rejects befriending the cook for pasta and distrusts obligations to reciprocate.

He resents exclusion while avoiding contact, recasting communal friendship as hunger, loneliness, desperation, and transactional obligation.