In this chap­ter of *The Catch­er in the Rye*, the pro­tag­o­nist, Hold­en Caulfield, finds him­self wait­ing in a hotel lob­by observ­ing the girls around him. As he con­tem­plates their futures, he express­es a cyn­i­cal out­look, pre­dict­ing that many will mar­ry dull, unin­ter­est­ing men. Reflect­ing on his time at Elk­ton Hills, he remem­bers a boy named Har­ris Mack­lin, who, despite his annoy­ing demeanor, had an excep­tion­al tal­ent for whistling. This prompts Hold­en to ques­tion how he per­ceives “bor­ing” peo­ple, sug­gest­ing that even they may pos­sess hid­den tal­ents.

When Sal­ly Hayes, his date, arrives, Hold­en feels an impul­sive rush of affec­tion for her—despite not being par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of her, which he acknowl­edges as a sign of his own insan­i­ty. Their con­ver­sa­tion car­ries a flir­ta­tious tone as they make their way to the the­ater to see a play fea­tur­ing the famous Lunts. In the taxi, Holden’s attrac­tion inten­si­fies as he impul­sive­ly pro­fess­es love for Sal­ly, although he knows it’s untrue.

The play itself dis­ap­points Hold­en. He crit­i­cizes its lack of engage­ment and finds the per­form­ers too good, bor­der­ing on inau­then­tic. Dur­ing inter­mis­sion, he encoun­ters a pre­ten­tious group of peo­ple, includ­ing Sal­ly, who eager­ly raves about the Lunts, exac­er­bat­ing Hold­en’s frus­tra­tion with the pho­ny atmos­phere.

After the show, Sal­ly pro­pos­es an idea to go ice-skat­ing at Radio City. Despite his skep­ti­cism, Hold­en agrees, only to real­ize that they are ter­ri­ble skaters. Their out­ing dete­ri­o­rates into an uncom­fort­able expe­ri­ence where Hold­en suf­fers through con­ver­sa­tions with Sal­ly and her acquain­tances, under­scor­ing his feel­ing of alien­ation.

As they sit down for drinks post-skat­ing, Hold­en open­ly express­es his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with his life and sur­round­ings, lament­ing the super­fi­cial nature of the world and the soci­etal pres­sures he feels. In a moment of des­per­a­tion, he sug­gests they escape to Mass­a­chu­setts and Ver­mont, excit­ed­ly fan­ta­siz­ing about a life away from their cur­rent real­i­ty. How­ev­er, Sal­ly dis­miss­es his idea, insist­ing that they are still young and should wait for their futures to unfold.

Frus­trat­ed and feel­ing mis­un­der­stood, Hold­en’s emo­tions boil over, lead­ing him to insult Sal­ly. This results in her tears, show­cas­ing the fragili­ty of their inter­ac­tion and demon­strat­ing Hold­en’s strug­gle to con­nect mean­ing­ful­ly with oth­ers. Ulti­mate­ly, over­whelmed and defeat­ed, he decides to leave her behind, con­tem­plat­ing the sin­cer­i­ty of his ear­li­er escapist mus­ings and con­firm­ing his own feel­ings of mad­ness .