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Pullman, Washington

T he weather hovers between fall and winter. It’s bitterly cold, but the first snow has yet to arrive.

After class at around five p.m., Ben Roberts is milling around in Wilson-Short Hall when he bumps into Bryan, who offers to give him a lift home.

Ben hesitates. He lives only a few minutes away, but he does need a ride. And he’s curious. Ben wants to understand what underlies Bryan’s antagonistic behavior toward the women in class.

So he makes a decision. He accepts.

Ben gets into Bryan’s white Hyundai Elantra. Bryan keeps the car’s interior clean and tidy, he notices.

The conversation begins straightforwardly enough, at least in Ben’s mind; they talk about some of the negative impacts of social media.

Ben says he believes that social media encourages people to stay within bubbles of like-minded people.

Dating app searches, for example, Ben points out, are designed algorithmically to keep men and women in certain groups.

Bryan gets personal. “Are you seeing anyone?” he asks.

“No,” says Ben. “And I’m fine with that.”

Ben doesn’t add something he doesn’t think Bryan knows and that is none of his business anyway: He’s not straight.

He wants to change the topic. But Bryan wants to talk about women. What he thinks of them.

He tells Ben that he believes in traditional gender roles, the implication being that their female colleagues are wasting their time in class and have no business pursuing master’s degrees.

Essentially, Bryan believes that men should make money and women should be homemakers.

Ben thinks the sentiment is tasteless as well as anachronistic—and odd for someone who’s chosen to attend WSU, a progressive academic community where women outnumber men on the faculty.

The department’s head is a woman! Dr. Melanie-Angela Neuilly, who is interested in feminist theories, no less, in researching comparative homicides, specifically violent homicides.

She also has a wider interest in criminology theories, including feminist theorizations of crime.

But Ben is even more horrified by what Bryan says next: “I can walk into any social gathering and get any girl I want.”

It’s an extraordinary thing to say, and in Ben’s mind, it puts Bryan at “creep level”—and not just because Ben doubts, given Bryan’s weird physical appearance, that there’s any truth to the boast.

Ben doesn’t rate himself highly as a specimen of physical attractiveness, but this guy? He looks more like Gollum than George Clooney, Ben thinks.

He doesn’t know that Bryan has in fact seen a girl he wants and cannot get: a beautiful girl with long blond hair and blue eyes.

Bryan continues talking, seemingly looking for a sign of agreement from Ben. When they arrive at Ben’s place, he gets out of the car, hoping they’re done.

They’re not.

Bryan asks to use his bathroom.

He lingers in Ben’s tiny, sardine-can studio apartment until 7:45 p.m. Both men remain standing for the conversation, because Ben has only two chairs and one of them is piled high with stuff.

Ben does not consider these hours well spent.

As for Bryan? He probably realized Ben wasn’t the kindred spirit he’d hoped he was.