I step into Madison Square Park on my lunch break, hoping to find an empty bench where I can dissociate for forty-five minutes before washing the final crumbs of salt-and-vinegar chips down with the lukewarm, overpriced Diet Coke I bought at the shawarma stand outside my building. Unfortunately, most of the benches are occupied. Not by mothers with strollers or students killing time between classes, but by twenty-something men in cutoff jorts and wired headphones, their legs spread with an entitlement that seems rather inconsistent with their professed opposition to traditional masculinity.

I have tasked myself with climbing the corporate ladder. I am college-educated, ambitious, and, like many women in the twenty-first century, under the impression that I am supposed to be doing something with my life. The men of New York appear to have found a less demanding profession: sitting in public parks, nursing eight-dollar matcha lattes, and allegedly reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

In forty-five minutes, I watch several of them turn no more than two pages. While a novel about a young woman’s psychological deterioration is hardly light reading, I struggle to believe it requires twenty minutes per page. I am left to consider two equally troubling possibilities: either the male literacy crisis is more severe than previously reported, or these men have discovered a way to be unemployed professionally.

I would be interested to see how they describe the position on LinkedIn, assuming they have one.

Perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps the gentleman occupying three-quarters of a bench genuinely requires that much room to appreciate Plath. Half the space belongs to his person; the remainder has been reserved for a canvas tote bag containing what appears to be a Wonder gift card acquired outside Whole Foods. His wired headphones are arranged conspicuously beside him, although he has yet to put them on. Presumably, page seven requires his undivided attention.

Perhaps he really does enjoy the grassy, vaguely medicinal taste of matcha. Perhaps the tote bag is simply practical. Perhaps wired headphones are preferable because nothing improves a morning commute quite like standing at a crosswalk untangling a knot that would challenge a professional sailor.

I am willing to entertain all these possibilities individually. What I find increasingly difficult to believe is that so many men have independently arrived at precisely the same personality.

There is an extraordinary amount of effort involved in appearing to have made none. The jorts must look accidental, though not so accidental that they resemble something purchased by a father at a suburban outlet mall. The headphones must be outdated enough to suggest an aversion to technology, but not so outdated that they cease to function. The tote bag must communicate an indifference to consumerism while advertising a business that charges eighteen dollars for lunch. Even the book has been carefully selected. The Bell Jar is a good novel, but it has also become a remarkably efficient way for a man to announce that he understands women without having to speak to one.

The appeal, I suspect, lies in the suggestion that he has somehow escaped the ordinary demands of modern life. While the rest of us answer emails, endure meetings, and calculate whether another eight-dollar coffee constitutes financial irresponsibility, he sits beneath a tree, apparently above it all. His indifference is the product being sold. The park is merely the showroom.

Of course, the entire performance depends on an audience. Nobody needs to know that you are reading The Bell Jar in the sunshine unless you have arranged yourself somewhere they can see you doing it. Nobody needs to know that you prefer wired headphones unless the cord is draped visibly across your chest. The look insists that its wearer couldn’t care less what anyone thinks, while making an impressive number of decisions about what everyone will see.

I cannot help admiring the discipline. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to appear competent at work, and these men have devoted comparable energy to appearing as though work has never crossed their minds.

By the time my lunch break ends, the gentleman on the bench has made it to page nine. I gather my empty Diet Coke, brush the crumbs from my lap, and head back toward the office. He adjusts his sunglasses, repositions the tote bag, and returns to his book.

I have no doubt he will finish it eventually. I am less certain that finishing it was ever the point.

The entire performance has been arranged to convince the audience that there is no performance at all.