Marcel Winatschek

Nothing There

Sat across from her at that place downtown and knew within five minutes it wasn’t happening. Not because anything was wrong exactly—she was fine, smart enough, looked like her pictures. But there was nothing there, no spark, no reason to be sitting in those particular chairs at that particular moment instead of literally anywhere else. You go through the motions anyway because bailing early feels worse than staying, so you order a drink you don’t want and ask questions you already know the answers to.

That’s the real punishment of a bad date—not that it’s bad, but that you have to sit there pretending it might get better, watching the clock, hoping she doesn’t notice you’re not actually listening. You leave knowing you wasted an evening and she probably left knowing the same thing, and nobody’s going to say it out loud.