I think what stood out the most to me is the succumbing to the despair and loneliness in each story. That applies to both the men who were the focal point of each short story and the women involved with each of them. For the men, there was never a moment of reckoning when they had the women in their lives still, only after they left or were gone, which to me symbolizes a larger issue of lack of vulnerability and emotional connectivity prevalent in our society among men. There seemed to be more comfort in the darkness/complacency than in confrontation of emotional discomfort. Both men and women were resigned to their situations which made for a series of unresolved short stories but ones that ultimately make you question a person's ability to connect with the people closest to you if only the space existed for openly acknowledging the hardships.