He occasionally missed Simone, but every time, right after feeling a desire to see her again, he was always relieved not to have to deal with her. If she could just appear at certain exact moments - when he was horny, or needed someone to talk to - that would have worked out fine, but people were not like that. There were hours built in where you had to hear someone express feelings about something that didn't seem important, and you nodded and pretended that it was. You had to mask your own ambivalence and pretend to be in love one hundred percent of the time, and he'd rather swim in a lake of hellfire.