“I came out of my apartment, and there he was — trench coat wide-open, totally naked, so proud of himself.”

This past week, one of my best friends came to visit, and along with her came a collection of stories from our time apart. We met while living in Los Angeles but grew up just 20 minutes apart on the other side of the country. It allowed for an easy friendship. Our senses of humor mirrored each other. Our life experiences paralleled. It was so comforting to find someone from home in a land of glitz and glittering ambition that was so foreign.

We both moved away from LA at the same time. I went to the woods, and she went to Manhattan. The wild creatures we have to deal with in our new lives could not be more different.

“You were flashed?!” I exclaimed.

“Yup, I’ve now had the true NYC experience,” she replied. “But get this: Almost as soon as he exposed himself to me, he quickly closed his trench coat and apologized.”

“He apologized?”

“He did. He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ And he looked embarrassed. I think he stuck around in front of my apartment. I don’t really know, because I hurried on my way.”

For the next hour or so, we spoke of her apologetic flasher. It was definitively decided that she was the unlucky victim of an overeager prankster.

We had both recently seen the trailer for the movie “Tag,” which is based on a true story about a group of friends who have been playing a game of tag for over 30 years. Perhaps the apologetic flasher had simply been “it” in a game of “flash” with his college buddies and my friend had unfortunately come out of the apartment building just a few steps ahead of the intended target. Maybe whenever the group gets together now for a beer, they retell the story about the one time Travis accidentally flashed some lady who wasn’t part of the game and they laugh and taunt Travis for being such an idiot. Oh, Travis.

We like creating this type of history. It’s a practice my friend and I both cultivated years before we met. I couldn’t say whether it is a byproduct of where we grew up, but it is undoubtedly wrapped up in the strings of survivalism. If you’re going to live in a world with flashers outside your apartment building, it’s certainly lovelier and more palatable to think of the flashers as people you recognize from your own life.

My mom, a psychologist, often speaks about the necessity of self-preservation. Don’t be ignorant, but be purposeful in the style and amount of information you ingest and what you do with it. It’s why I’ve replaced my morning news with reruns of “Boy Meets World.” I don’t see this changing until Mr. Feeny runs for Congress.

There is a kind of bliss that comes from assuming the best in others. I myself went through a flashing phase for a few months. In the haze of early motherhood, I never wore a top because my sole existence on this planet was to be a milking machine for a helpless screaming baby. I barely ate. I never left the house. Sleep was a distant memory. Memories were distant a memory. I was as unlikely to be able to summon a complete thought or sentence as I was to perform brain surgery. Neurons weren’t firing.

But someone still had to get the mail.

One time, it was the look on the face of my neighbor across the street that alerted me to my naked top. The other time, it was the look of a guy walking his dog — mouth agape, trying to be respectful and look away but also not totally away.

It couldn’t have been pretty. There was definitely leaking. But I don’t know how closely people are paying attention when flashed.

My house was a few blocks from the elementary school. I guess I should consider myself lucky I’m not on some list.

Both times, I quickly lifted an arm and ran back into the house as fast as I could shuffle in my pregnancy jeans. Both times, I screamed over my shoulder as I shuffled, “I’m so sorry!”

I am the apologetic flasher.

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Katie Langrock is a nationally syndicated columnist.