In intense discussion a group leader ponders aloud, asking why hermits hide and what defines outcasts, among other cerebral queries. A group of friends discusses the oddities they have seen and perceived in their lives leather-clad hermits and criminal astronauts among them. They debate the purpose of hermitage, the classification of outcasts, and the purpose of their own reflections.

An older woman and self-proclaimed loner is forced to engage with others at her accounting job after she is pushed to socialize by her managers. This, as well as her invasive obsession with the young woman next door, leads her into uncomfortable self-reflection and new experiences.

A man walks into a bar in Atlanta and becomes intrigued by a clique of regulars. After marrying one of their sisters, causing a rift between her and her brother, he realizes that the bar will not cure his loneliness.

A man reflects on the loneliness of his childhood home, where his family would fervently clean the house every Saturday for guests on Sunday who would never show.

Stinging from his recently cut-off engagement, a young man retreats to a small town in the mountains of Virginia to work as city editor of the local newspaper. Alternately entranced and disgusted with his hermit-like nocturnal life, he finds peace and pleasure listening to the St. Anthony Chorale.

An aging electrical engineer's intensifying sensation of detachment culminates in a series of debilitating headaches. As he works through fatigue, setbacks, and pain, he finally confronts the source of his desolation.

When a woman finds her purse stolen, she retraces the steps of her eventful day only to realize that the encounters, and her life as a whole, are empty and purposeless.

The friendship between two college students is based entirely on dislike and desperation - but also need. One has an eating disorder that she needs help overcoming, while the other desperately wants access to luxury and wealth. As they grow closer, secrets and lies threaten to ruin their relationship.

A middle-aged man in a small Northern town is desperate to escape his mundane routines and imagines rash and violent actions that might give his life meaning.

In an unlikely encounter, a homeless teenage boy recounts harsh events of his life to a writer. He nonchalantly tells of an employer whose assignments caused him to have permanent physical and mental damage.