So, you’ve been stood up. It’s a classic, really. You’re sitting there in a nice shirt, checking the door every time someone walks in. You look like you’re waiting for a spy contact or a long-lost lover. Spoiler alert: nobody is coming.

The first fifteen minutes are the denial phase. You’re convinced they’re just stuck in traffic. Traffic is the ultimate savior of social anxiety. Maybe they got a flat tire. Maybe they’re in a tunnel with no signal. The universe is conspiring against them, and they are definitely not just sitting at home in sweatpants.

Then you hit the thirty-minute mark. Now you’re just sad. You start checking your phone to see if you somehow sent the wrong address. You didn’t. You check your texts, just in case they sent a frantic apology that never arrived. It didn’t.

At this point, your brain tries to protect your ego. It suggests that maybe they are in the hospital. Or maybe their phone exploded. Honestly, it would be easier if their phone had actually exploded. But let’s get real. They are probably sitting on their couch, eating cereal, realizing that putting on real pants was just too much effort for a Tuesday.

The worst part about being stood up isn’t even the date not happening. It’s the sheer boredom of the realization. You have to decide if you’re going to sit there and eat your appetizer alone or bail out and look like the person who got dumped.

Here is my advice. Order the main course. Eat it slowly. Enjoy not having to pretend you care about their job, their childhood dog, or their questionable opinions on life. You are already there. You already paid for the parking. You might as well get the calories out of it.

When you finally leave, just walk out with your head high. You aren’t the loser in this scenario. The loser is the person sitting at home, scrolling through Netflix, wondering if they should have gone out.

You survived. And honestly, the food is probably better without them anyway.