The No-Show

by Beth O'Leary

“But why? Why are we so hostile to that? What if we called that compassion, and thought, wow, isn’t it great that strangers can look at me and think, Poor her, I hope she’s okay? Because actually, that’s what I think if I see a woman who looks like she’s been stood up. I don’t think, God, how pathetic, what a loser, nobody loves her. Do you?” Collective headshaking. Though there’s probably the odd dickhead in there who thinks exactly that. Siobhan does truly believe her message—that people are ultimately good, and kind, and worth loving—but she also thinks that quite a lot of them are hiding it well. “So why are we letting our embarrassment tell us to think the worst of the people around us? And—hang on—how has that emotion managed to get in there and tell us, This is on you? When, I mean, whose fault is it that I was sitting alone in that café? Was it mine? Or was it his?” “His!” they yell, and Siobhan smiles out at them all. “Let me tell you what I did as soon as I left that café. I blocked that guy’s number and I cleared all our messages and I ghosted him, because I damn well wasn’t going to wait for him to ghost me first. Am I right? You know what I’m going to say. Love yourself first. Don’t wait for him to do it for you.”