A lonely man in his forties imagines a domestic life with a woman he briefly met who is interested in his furniture, but not his marriage proposal.

Sitting at a bar, a man reminisces about his past experiences with love and develops a philosophy for 'beautiful' relationships that relies on the inevitability of their ends.

After his wife's death, a man strikes up a romance with a new woman — as well as an unexpected friendship with the woman's ex-husband.

When loving each other becomes inconvenient, a man separates from his wife of 20 years and struggles to realize that the end of marriage must also bring an end to the life they were supposed to live together.

A conversation with his former lover opens a man's eyes to his tendency to flee rather than confront the hopeless reality of his own life.

Jack wanders around the world trying to find the right person, but nobody seems to stay long enough—that is, until he meets Jamie, a person he never thought he could love, and things change forever.

Following his breakup, a Japanese college student uses savings from his relationship as a means to quit his summer mowing job, but not without first helping a woman who asks, but doesn't appear to need, for her lawn to be mowed.

A middle-aged writer turns back the clock by twenty years and narrates his ill-fated romance with the beautiful but unattainable girl from his memories.

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.

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.