Tanimura retells his experience with her to Kitaru during their next shift, omitting certain details. Despite her 'unfaithfulness,' she admits that Kitaru holds a special place in her heart, and has vivid dreams of them as a couple. Tanimura's girlfriend could not commit to him while Erika admits that she is seeing another man because of Kitaru's apathy. On their date, both talk about their personal lives. One day, Kitaru proposes that Tanimura go on a 'date' with Erika to which Tanimura reluctantly agrees. Kitaru has a few idiosyncrasies that cause his girlfriend Erika to feel uneasy about their relationship he speaks in a Kansai dialect despite living all his life in Tokyo, does not want to study hard despite having university aspirations, and seems to be asexual around her. Tanimura remembers a time in his early twenties when he worked in a restaurant with his friend Kitaru. Dealing with actors and the world of theatre, 'Drive My Car' could be considered as an example of what Graham Wolfe calls ' theatre-fiction'. After contemplating this propositions, he falls asleep as she continues driving.

After hearing his story, Misaki notes that perhaps his wife having affairs had had nothing to do with love and that was a good enough reason to do so. He also never learns of his wife's motives, calling it a 'blind spot' in his knowledge of her. However, over the course of their six month friendship which was spent mostly binge drinking at local bars, he was never able to find any damning information and instead sympathizes with Takatsuki's observations. One tale includes how he befriended her lover, Takatsuki, with the intention of harming him.

During their trips, Kafuku occasionally tells her about his life as an actor and his late wife's extramarital affairs.

Kafuku, a veteran and widowed actor, hires twenty-four year old driver Misaki Watari to chauffeur him around Tokyo due to his license being revoked due to a D.U.I. Originally published in (English translation) The collection shares its title with Ernest Hemingway's second short story collection. The stories are about men who have lost women in their lives, usually to other men or death. Men Without Women ( Japanese: 女のいない男たち, Hepburn: Onna no inai otokotachi ) is a 2014 collection of short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, translated and published in English in 2017.

Men without women by murakami