I’m not meeting the right people. Everyone I know is an asshole. I don’t mean that unkindly. They can’t help themselves. They probably don’t even realize they’re assholes. They’re just not the right people.

            I met a woman on the internet. It was obvious, right off, that we didn’t like each other very much, but we decided to meet in-person at a café.

            I waited at an outside table on a warm afternoon in fall. It was quiet and peaceful. No one sat nearby, and I looked out on a nearly empty parking lot.

            I sat there until it was an hour past our meeting time. When she failed to show, I liked her more than anybody I knew. I sent her a message of gratitude. I expressed how much I had enjoyed not meeting her. I told her I had spent one of the best hours of my life sitting there at the small round metal table looking out on the nearly empty parking lot where nothing was happening. I told her that I now liked her very much and I thought she might be the right person for me after all.

            She never wrote back. I admire her for standing me up. What courage, what insight! Noble soul! I am so glad we never met. I will always love you.

Robert Garner McBrearty is the author of five books of fiction, most recently a collection of flash fiction WHEN I CAN'T SLEEP, published by Matter Press. His stories have been widely published including in the Pushcart Prize, The Missouri Review, New England Review, Witness, North American Review, Fiction Southeast, the Cafe Irreal and New Flash Fiction Review.