He is constantly, blithely, amused at everything. His overperformed laughter, far louder and longer than it ever would be naturally, dominates the living room, while his constant, needless, uninteresting commentary on everything he does maintains confirmation that I never lose track of what he is doing with his time. The number of times I hear him, alone in his room, finishing something, and standing up with a “right, food!”, or his needless chuckle and commentary when I tell him that I’m not ready yet and he needs to wait a few moments. I can have a coughing fit so strong it brings up water from my mouth, as I cling to the counter and turn red-faced, he still won’t stop his story about his dad’s pension. It’s a constant insistence to have a word in. To have his view or perspective always present, tacitly, to be influenced in some way. He is always desperate to offer his opinion about some political situation, which is not really his opinion, but rather something he has absorbed from one of the many “intellectual dark web” stuff he binges. I long ago figured out that he lies about most of his experiences and accomplishments, massively overflating or embellishing them. It’s a low-grade, mediocrity-dressed-in-narcissism that I don’t have any energy, breath or space for. There is nothing sincere or authentic of that man, except when he occasionally breaks down crying. He needs to fail. Seriously, humiliatingly, irreconcilably fail, before he can start building a self that isn’t all persona, and not all this bloated, uninteresting persona.