As Tara lay face down in child’s pose on the spongy green mat, she could smell the faint stench of the countless hippies who had come before her, and she vomited a tiny bit in her mouth. She swallowed the vile contents back down, while the instructor exhaled erotically and announced in her calming, dulcet voice, “Class is ended. Have a nice day. Namaste.”

Tara rolled up her mat and returned it to the pile in the corner, when she noticed a scruffy guy roughly her own age looking at her. He was normal-looking. No man bun or ironic beard.

“First time?” he asked.

“No,” Tara replied, embarrassed that she had been watched and, mortifyingly, observed in her yogic ineptitude.

“Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to judge. It’s just that most people bring their own mat.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tara replied ruefully. “I really should get my own. All I can think about during class is the toe jam that has been smeared into the sticky-grip surface.”

The young man made a face and looked like he might have vomited a bit into his own mouth, too.

“Why don’t you then?” he asked.

“Why don’t I what?”

“Why don’t you get your own mat? You can get them cheap these days.”

“I dunno,” Tara shrugged. “Somehow I don’t want to be that girl. That girl who walks around carrying her own yoga mat. That girl who hangs a Buddhist prayer flag in her Room and Board-furnished house and wears organic cotton clothing from REI and eats Trader Joe’s kale chips as a snack.”

“So you’d rather rub your face repeatedly on a mat that reminds you of other people’s stinky feet?” he asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Tara slipped on her Tom’s canvas shoes and walked out of the yoga studio. The young man followed her, and she didn’t stop him.

“Actually, I hate yoga,” he admitted. “I keep coming back because I think I should love it. Everyone says they love it, but I just don’t get it.”

Tara stopped cold in her tracks and kissed him.

“What was that?” he cried, although he wasn’t in the least bit unhappy.

“I’ve never met anyone else who hated yoga,” she said. “Yoga’s like a cult or something, only it’s a cult that everyone belongs to. I’ve had this weird dream that one day I’d find someone else who hates yoga as much as I do.  And here you are.”

“Wanna get a burger?” he asked.