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“Our society doesn't allow any foreign objects. I've always suffered because of that," Shiraha said, drinking jasmine tea made with a teabag from the drink bar. I was the one who had gotten the jasmine tea for him since he didn't make any move to get anything for himself. He just sat in silence, and when I placed it in front of him he started drinking it without even saying thank you.

"Everyone has to toe the line. Why am I still doing casual work even though I'm in my mid-thirties? Why haven't I ever had a girlfriend? The assholes don't even bat an eyelid when they ask whether I've ever had sex or not. And then they laugh and tell me not to include prostitutes in the count. I don't make trouble for anyone. But they all seem to think nothing of raping me, just because I'm in the minority."

I considered him one step short of being a sex offender. But here he was casually likening his own suffering to sexual assault, without sparing a thought for all the trouble he'd caused for women store workers and customers.

He seemed to have this odd circuitry in his mind that allowed him to see himself only as the victim, and never the perpetrator, I thought was I watched him.

"Really," I said, even wondering whether he made a habit of being self-pitying. "That must be hard.”