Status Updates From Other Men's Daughters

Slightly cliché so far but will keep on reading

“What is it all about?” puzzled Dr. Merriwether, walking, absorbed, toward class, lab, home, or Holyoke Center. What is this terrific need to look special? Is it so hard to be anyone now? Why so much noise? Was it that there was so much expression in the world that one had to go further and further out to even think of oneself as a person? How he wished, how he wished.

It's like Stern read Stoner by John Williams and re-created most insufferable creepy version of it..