I cancelled four times. The fifth time, I went.

The first time I cancelled, I had a real reason. Work thing. Actually true. I sent the message, he said no problem, and I thought: okay, that's probably the end of that.

He messaged again three days later. Asked if I'd want to reschedule.

The second time I cancelled, I also had a real reason. Less real than the first one, but real enough that I could describe it out loud without feeling like I was lying. Some kind of family thing. He said, again, no problem.

The third time I cancelled, I didn't have a reason. I made one up. I'm not proud of that. I just — I was sitting on my couch on a Thursday afternoon, and I had been thinking about going all week, and when the day arrived I just couldn't make myself do it. I don't know how to explain it better than that. I sent a message saying something about feeling unwell. He believed me, or at least he said he did.

The fourth time, I didn't cancel with a message. I just didn't show up.

That one I feel genuinely bad about. He waited. I don't know for how long. I didn't ask, later. I turned off my phone for two hours and then turned it back on and there was one message from him that said: "Hope everything's alright."

That's it. Not angry. Not a series of texts demanding an explanation. One message, and it was about me.

I sat with that for a few days. I kept coming back to it. Something about the restraint of it.

I reached out to him and apologized, and I actually told him part of the truth — not all of it, not the part where I didn't really know what I was afraid of, but the part about being nervous, which was true. He said something that I've thought about since. He said: "You don't have to explain it. If you'd like to try again, I'm interested. If not, I understand."

I thought about it for four more days. I made a list of reasons in my head, the pros and cons variety, which I always do when I'm avoiding making a decision I've already made.

The fifth time, I went.

I got there seven minutes late and he was at the bar, not a table. He had ordered wine for himself but there was a second glass waiting that he hadn't poured yet. He poured it when he saw me. That small thing — the glass he hadn't poured yet — it did something to my chest that I didn't expect.

I don't know if I can explain what the four cancelled times were really about. Fear of something turning out to be what I thought it was, maybe. Or fear of it turning out to be different. Or just the general fear of starting something you can't predict the shape of from the outside.

He didn't bring up the cancelled dates. Not once, the whole evening. I kept expecting him to, and he didn't. We just had dinner.

At the end of the night I felt this strange combination of things — relief and embarrassment and something a little like gratitude, though I wasn't sure exactly what I was grateful for.

On the way home I thought about all the things I would have missed if I hadn't gone the fifth time.

I still don't know what I was so afraid of. I think the honest answer is: I don't entirely know, and I might not figure it out, and maybe the fifth time was enough.