I picked up B. at her place. I arrived at 5:30, fifteen minutes early, because I hoped to get in some private time with her. Instead, she just seemed irritated. “I’m not ready yet, just stay in the living room, OK?” So I sat there, reading the amazon.com reviews of the book she told me they were going to be talking about: Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy .

“I figured it would be a women-oriented novel,” I had said to her. “Like The Woman in White or Bridget Jones’s Diary.”

“I wish. Every so often, someone decides it’s her job to educate the rest of us on some pet peeve.”

Hearing B. say that was really helpful. I now had an orientation I’d take toward the book. B. was against it, so I’d be against it.

“How many other women are bringing their boyfriends, do you know?” I asked.

“You’re the only man coming, Harlan. I’m pretty sure this is the first time any man has ever come to any women’s book group.”

I wanted to ask why she invited me if she didn’t want me to go, but I already knew why. It was because in her mind, I had begged to go. I also didn’t ask why she was using sarcasm with me instead of her “radical honesty,” because I knew the answer to that, too.

We went to a Japanese place. As an aside, I’d like someone to please explain to me how Japanese food has replaced Chili’s as the kind of restaurant everyone can agree upon. I would have loved an Awesome Blossom and cajun chicken alfredo. Or maybe that’s TGIFriday’s. Either way.

I ordered teriyaki chicken. It wasn’t half-bad. Most people ordered sushi. I have a theory that nobody really likes sushi, because I have never seen anyone eat sushi when they’re by themselves. People eat sushi to impress people they are with.

I didn’t care about the food, though. Not really. I just wanted to hold B.’s hand. Show that we were connected. Every time I did, though, she’d reach for her drink or otherwise be occupied. Was she embarrassed of me? Had I offended her? Nobody in the book club asked why I had come along, so I expect B. had already given them an explanation. I started thinking what the email must have looked like:

“This sad sack I’ve gone out with a couple times doesn’t want to be alone tonight, so I’m going to throw him a line and let him tag along, OK? I’m really sorry, and promise it won’t happen except just this one time.”

They talked for about ninety minutes before they even got to the book. Long before then, I had finished my chicken. And I had given up on holding Bertha or inching my chair close to her.

One train of thoughts, a mantra in a way, kept running through my head: “I wish I was home. I wish I was in bed, under the covers. I wish I was alone.”

Everyone was going around the table, offering their insights into how awful it was that in this day and age there was what amounted to slavery anywhere, much less in America. Acting like this book had touched them deeply.

Bertha was right there with them, expressing forceful indignation.

Meanwhile, I was thinking: “I just want to go home. To bed. To be alone. To watch TV.”

And strangely, during one of those lulls most conversations have, it occurred to me that I could have this wish, very easily, by following Bertha’s advice. By being radically honest.

So I took a turn talking

“I don’t think any of you are going to change your lives after reading this book. In fact, by eating in a restaurant, you’re probably supporting something close to slave labor. I think the real reason you’re discussing this book is to appear intellectual, when what you really want is to be entertained. You could have both of those things in a good graphic novel like The Watchmen, but you’d never stoop to reading one of those.

“Meanwhile, I’m here because I wanted to be with B., but I’m not really here with her at all, and I hate crowds. So there’s no reason for me to be here, and I’m leaving.”

And I left. I just drove home, figuring B. could get a ride. When I got home, I turned the phone off and I locked the door.

And then I turned my phone back on and unlocked the door, because really what I wanted was for her to call or come over.

But she hasn’t. Not Saturday night, not today. And 95% of the time I’m certain that I’m glad of that, and then I’ll hear something and think it’s her and my heart jumps. But of course it isn’t her and then I’m stuck with the realization that I do want her to call me or come over even if it’s to yell at me for embarrassing me in front of her friends. Because then I can ask her why she doesn’t love me anymore.

Isolation Score: 10