He was sitting in a crowded café with a woman, a little girl and a little boy. Most of the crowd had noticed him because he was a popular figure in town. He, however, was noticing no one and spending an inordinate amount of time and energy avoiding looks and attention from those close to him, by giving his own looks and stifling attention to the two children beside him.
It cannot be an easy task to be where he is, which is somewhere between the attention you feign neither to care for nor to notice, and the craving for it.
