last weekend i got stood up on a first date.
like, properly stood up.
i was in sydney, i was dressed, the reservation was booked and i was ready to go.
and then he just didn’t show up.
now i would love to tell you that i immediately thought, “his loss,” flicked my hair and marched confidently into chiswick without giving it another thought.
i did not.
i felt really shit.
i felt embarrassed and rejected and had that horrible feeling where you’re convinced everybody somehow knows what has happened, even though obviously nobody has any idea and they’re all far too busy living their own lives.
for a minute, i really wanted to leave.
i wanted to go back, take off my outfit and forget the whole thing had happened.
but i was already there.
and the reservation was at chiswick.
so i went anyway.
i sat down by myself, ordered a glass of wine and had the lunch i had been looking forward to.
and yes, it felt a bit awkward at first.
i’ve travelled to 81 countries, camped around australia in a swag and turned up alone in places where i didn’t know a single person.
but somehow, sitting at a table that was meant for two can still make me feel incredibly vulnerable.
i think that’s the part people don’t always understand about doing things alone.
you don’t suddenly become this completely fearless woman who never feels uncomfortable or wishes someone was sitting beside her.
sometimes you still feel lonely.
sometimes you feel like everyone is looking at you.
sometimes you would really, really prefer not to be doing it alone.
you just do it anyway.
and somewhere between the wine arriving and eating a very excellent lunch, i stopped thinking quite so much about the man who hadn’t shown up.
the day became mine again.
i didn’t stay because i wanted to prove that i didn’t care.
i did care.
i stayed because i didn’t want his shitty behaviour to decide what happened next.
i think we miss so many good things waiting for someone else to come with us.
we wait for a partner. we wait for a friend to be free. we wait until we feel more confident.
and sometimes, if the person we were relying on lets us down, we let them take the whole experience with them.
but the restaurant was still there.
the food was still delicious.
the wine was still cold.
and i was still allowed to enjoy it.
going anyway doesn’t mean pretending everything is wonderful when it isn’t.
it just means you can feel disappointed and still have lunch.
you can feel embarrassed and still walk through the door.
you can wish somebody had shown up and still decide not to miss out because they didn’t.
so yes, i got stood up on a first date.
but i also took myself to chiswick, ordered exactly what i wanted and had a really beautiful lunch.
not quite the day i had planned.
still a day worth having.