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I looked at my phone to see the message that at this point I felt was inevitable:

Hey Violet! Sorry I had some stuff come up and I don’t think our date is going to work out! Sorry!

Sabrina’s cheery, smiling profile picture was next to the message, but any positive feelings I might have had for this woman evaporated entirely. I was sitting in a slightly too expensive restaurant that I’d made reservations for two weeks ago, wearing a cute dress, but the straps dug in to my armpits and the zipper itched between my shoulder blades. I guess when I thought I was going to have a wonderful first date with a woman, I was so excited I didn’t notice these things. Maybe I thought that if I wore a dress this cute, Sabrina would have no choice but to peel me out of it by the end of the night.

But now that wasn’t happening, obviously. I was almost an hour into this date, and the waiter was clearly getting annoyed when I kept telling him my date would be here in just a minute. With this message, I knew I had been lying to myself just as much as I was lying to him that this would be anything but a disaster.

I picked at the couple bits of the appetizer that still looked appealing to me, my appetite suddenly replaced with a lead ball in my stomach.

Also, she called me Violet. My name is Vi. I make that clear every. Single. Time. It’s one of the first things I say to someone when I meet them. Violet is some eighty-year-old woman who spends her days tending to an elaborate garden in the English countryside. Vi is…well, Vi is a perpetually frustrated JavaScript developer that can’t get a damn date to save her life.

“Miss…I’m sorry, but?—“

I turned my head to the waiter, tears welling in my eyes, “I know, you need me to go…and my date just stood me up, so, I don’t have a reason to be here. I’ll just take the goddamn check, please.”

The waiter was taken aback by my outburst, and so was I. I wasn’t a really an angry person, not even when I should be sometimes, but I was so fed up by being ghosted like this, treated like my existence was an afterthought, that I let it out.

I was so angry and hollow-feeling that I needed someone who I knew wouldn’t ever shut me down or abandon me. I found my contacts and hit the top of my favorites list. I knew that if I called, Yara would know it was serious.

“Vi, what’s up?” Yara said.

“Yara, I…”

And at this moment, this is when the waterworks started. All the emotions about the rejections, missed connections, ghostings, and all the times that I’d felt useless in the past few years came crashing down against me at once.

Crying wasn’t even enough to encompass what was happening to me. This was beyond describable emotion. Doing it in a crowded restaurant was more than embarrassing, but at this point I’d been so embarrassed at the sad state of things, I didn’t care.

“…Sabrina didn’t show…god, Yara, I feel so fucking worthless.” I said, leaning down with my elbows on the table in a very undignified contortion.

“Ah, Vi, babe, I’m sorry…you know it’s not about you, right?”

“Yara, at this point I sort of think it is…” I looked up and saw the waiter standing with who I assumed was the manager. Whatever they were going to tell me, they were wise to not approach me because who knew what I’d do. The manager took the check out of the leather bill folder and held it up, then tore it down the middle before smiling at me. It either meant that I didn’t need to pay the bill, or that they were going to ban me from this establishment, either or both were fine by me.

“Vi…I’m in the neighborhood, how about I pick you up and take you for some coffee? We can talk it out, I don’t want you feeling like shit all night because some dumb girl doesn’t know that you’re the best.”

“Am I the dumb girl in that situation?” I said, smiling at the small scrap of levity.

“Guess we’ll have to find out…you’re at Mastrano’s, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I’ll see you in five.”

“Thanks, Yara. Genuinely.” I said.

We hung up, and I walked out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. The cool late spring air was a relief, and the clouds were just patchy enough that I could see a few stars dancing in the murky black sky. I almost felt human again. Almost.