I don't know if this even counts as something to confess, it’s not really… big, I guess? But it felt heavy last night. And maybe a little pathetic. I was out, you know, on a date. With someone really nice, actually. We were at that place, the one with the good wine list and the little candles, trying to have a proper grown-up evening. I’m thirty-seven, nearly thirty-eight, so these things are supposed to be easy now, right? You just… connect. But I kept getting this twitchy feeling in my stomach, like a nervous tic that wouldn’t quit. So I did the thing. Said I needed the loo, slipped away. And instead of, like, checking my lipstick or whatever normal people do, I just sat there in the stall. Scrolling. Straight to his page. The one where he just got married. A few months ago now. I don’t even know *why* I do it. It’s like a compulsion, honestly. Every time a new batch of photos pops up, I just… have to see them. There she was, all floaty white dress and big smile, and him looking… happy. Really happy. It's not like I wish I was there. I don’t think. We were never going to be that kind of thing. He was always so… solid. And I was always off chasing some weird idea, some abstract concept that never quite paid the rent. I just sat there, phone glowing in the dim light, watching the minutes tick by. Five minutes. Ten. Longer than you should ever spend in a fancy restaurant bathroom, especially on a first-ish date. I could almost hear the low hum of conversation from the dining room, and the guy I was with was probably wondering what happened to me. And all I could think was, *man*, I am such a cliché. A complete disaster. What am I even doing here? With this perfectly lovely, perfectly present person, when all I can manage to do is hide and look at someone else’s perfect life. It felt… hollow. Like I should feel something sharper. More heartbreak, or maybe just actual happiness for him. But it was just this dull ache, a flat sort of understanding that time just keeps moving, and I’m still stuck here, looking at ghosts.