She said she knew instantly in the depths of her soul that this man's intentions were to brutally rape, torture, and kill her. And she wasn't melodramatic about it, but she described herself as literally paralyzed with terror. Her explanation was that she didn't actually feel any energy field until she shut the car door and they were moving. Well she said she knew she made a mistake the moment she got in the car. And in the anecdote, there she is: hitchhiking. Her obscure denomination's views on energy fields and connections between souls via what she kept calling 'focus.' And in response to some sort of prompt or association, she begins to relate this anecdote. Ryan: Okay, so now there we are in my apartment, and she begins going on about her religious views. You almost know what's going to be said before she even opens her mouth. I mean, how exploited you feel that it is so easy to get this type to regard you as a kindred soul. And you almost resent the fact that it's so goddamn easy.

And there's something-I mean, near contempt in the way that you can casually saunter over to her blanket and create the sense of connection that will allow you to pick her up.

Whether or not you approve, I think we can assume you understand. And having had some prior dealings with the cruncher genus, I think the one-night proviso was due to the grim unimaginability of having to talk with her for more than one night. And it was really nothing more complicated or noble than that. And that my interest in her was due almost entirely to the fact that yes, she was pretty. Look, I'll just bite the political bullet and confess that I classified her as a strictly one-night objective. And she was straight out of Central casting: the sandals, flamboyantly long hair, financial support from parents she reviled, and some professed membership in an apostrophe-heavy Eastern religion that I defy anyone to pronounce correctly. And she was what one might call a granola cruncher.

Ryan: I'm aware of how all this sounds and can well imagine the judgments you're forming, but if I'm really to explain this to you then I have no choice but to be.

Brief conversations with hideous men