Nothing accents an entire Saturday alone, like a Saturday night alone. It was a choice. I could have gone out with friends or accepted a setup, but I opted for a weekend to wallow. It happens when you are single. You are moving swiftly in life with great things happening around and to you, and then you see that adorable old couple that has been together for longer than you have been alive. They flow seamlessly as one through the market or down the sidewalk as your eyes cling to them in a mix of awe and envy. Suddenly, all the significant parts of your life are buried beneath the weight of your single status. This weight can only be lifted by diving into it, admitting what you don't have. The remedy is a night of wallow.

I could have gone out instead of cruising delivery options on my phone. I could have let my friends pull me out of my funk with infectious laughter and a few drinks, but I wanted to be angry. It had been almost a year since I had gotten out of my last relationship, and since then, I had only been on a few dates, each one more disastrous than the previous. My mind began to meander through the hall of shame.

There had been Ernie. I had thought he was aloof in an endearing way. When he arrived 15-minutes late and dressed like he had been doing yardwork, I tried to convince myself that he was not vain. When his order started with a request for two beers, I called him efficient. It was when he asked me to switch seats with him so he could 'keep an eye on the score of the game' that I knew the date was over.

Still, Ernie was a dream date compared to Luke. Luke arrived on time and in a sleek dark grey suit with perfectly styled hair. He was more beautiful and had clearly put more thought into his appearance than me. Again, I stifled my concerns; he was looking to put his best foot forward. As he approached the table, I realized he was on the phone. I anticipated he would slow his pace and wrap up the call before he reached me, but instead, he arrived at the table and immediately, without any other greeting, stuck a finger up. It was the universal sign for one minute. I knew it; I had used it many times, but for some reason, this being his first impression felt like it was foreshadowing the whole relationship. I would be in a relationship with the one-minute finger, which would eventually lead to me giving my own single-finger gesture as I ran screaming from the scene. That date was clearly over before it started.

The cream of the crop, the bad dates of all bad dates, the one that I am so glad got away, the fish that should never be pulled from the sea, Trevor. He arrived on time and looking handsome in a casual jeans and white t-shirt combination. Our conversation meandered easily without any starts and stops. He was a gentleman the entire time, from the moment he pulled out my chair until he held the door as we left. For a few brief hours, I saw possibilities. The whole evening was warm and fun. I let my guard down; I should have known better.

We had paused on the sidewalk to exchange final pleasantries. As I hoped for a good-night kiss, a voice interrupted us.

"Trevor?" The voice came from behind me and caused his eyes to grow wide. "I thought that was you. Did you get out of work earlier than expected?"

The woman was pulling up beside him in more than a friendly way.

"Hey," he said with a mix of exuberance and raw fear. "Yeah, I was just getting dinner with a friend." He looked at me with pleading eyes.

"You should have texted; you could have picked my food up for me and saved me a trip," she spoke with a relaxed, unsuspecting tone.

I quickly surmised the situation. He had a girlfriend, and he desperately hoped that I would not let his girlfriend know that he had just been on a date with me. It was the literal worst. I flipped between telling her and not telling her. On the one hand, she needed to know that her boyfriend was a lying, cheating piece of scum. On the other, she didn't deserve to learn this on a sidewalk from the woman he had just been on a date with moments earlier. I had never understood murderers until that moment. I wanted to kill him. I played the trial out quickly in my head but wasn't convinced that his lack of moral character would be enough to absolve me of the crime, and I had a mani/pedi scheduled in the morning, so I quickly moved away from any illegal plans. Instead, I said my goodbyes and walked away.

The guilt ate at me for half a block. What if she was making plans with this man? She was someone's daughter or best friend. Stupid love: this is what it does; it hurts. I turned around and headed back to the restaurant. They sat at the bar waiting for her food. She was happily chatting away as he still looked a bit like a deer caught in headlights.

"Excuse me, may I have a pen and napkin?" I asked the hostess.

She was too busy even to question me and just yielded to my request. I scribbled a simple, 'he's cheating on you. I'm so sorry,' across the napkin and asked the hostess to give it to the unsuspecting girlfriend.

The hostess looked at the note and then up to me. "I knew that dick looked familiar," she muttered before heading out on her delivery.

I didn't wait for the note to arrive. I knew love sucked; I didn't need to see it in action. The memory still sent a surge of anger through me that was only quelled by an incoming call from my best friend.

"Come out," Stina's said in one final plea to have me join her that evening. "Jay's cute friend is coming," she enticed.

"It's just too much tonight. The thought of showering, dealing with my hair and make-up, not wearing sweats, all sounds very unappealing," I whined.

"So, you are what, going to sit on your couch eating take-out sushi and watch some ridiculous glorification of unattainable love?"

"That was my plan, but I was leaning towards a burrito instead of sushi tonight."

"Seriously, Sadie, your wallowing theory is deeply flawed," she argued.

"I respectfully disagree. Sometimes a good wallow is cathartic. I'm looking forward to it."

"Fine, what if I come to you. I can bring wine, and we can throw popcorn at the screen together while booing," her voice was filled with hope.

"No, you would be faking it. You are blissfully in love with Jay. I would only bring you down."

Stina and I had been best friends since middle school. She had once been my biggest anti-love partner in crime, but she had turned into a pro-love poster child in the year since she had met Jay. It was all, open-communication and planning for the future for her. I was happy for Stina, but she could no longer wallow, so my wallowing was now a solo activity. Not that I minded, now when I dropped chocolate on my sweatshirt, I didn't have to bother to change.

"Fine, but tomorrow we are going to brunch. I am not taking no for an answer," Stina demanded.

"Deal. Have fun being all fancy and going out tonight," I teased before hanging up my phone and ordering a burrito.

While I waited for my food, I changed into my wallow uniform; joggers, a t-shirt, an oversized sweatshirt, with my hair thrown up in a high bun. I even popped out my contacts and put on the glasses that I didn't even let Stina see me wear. What did I have to lose? The only person destined to see me was the delivery person.

I ate my burrito cave-woman style over the sink. I was not ashamed; it was practical. I didn't have to dirty a plate, so I didn't have to clean a dish. I eyed my wine bottle, tempted to swig right from it, but even I thought that was sinking a notch too low. That would push me from wallow to full-on giving up mode.

I started my popcorn and poured my wine as I let my mind wander through all the romance movies I could watch. I knew I was in trouble when I tossed out The Notebook for being too hopeful. In that one whip of my mind, only a handful of movies could possibly remain; not much was left on the field beyond The Notebook.

It was a flick of a decision to watch Romeo and Juliet, perhaps the most nauseating romance story of all time. Two young lovers still in the infancy of their lives fall for each other even though their families are enemies. Nevertheless, their young love was so strong that they must be together. So, in the most saccharine of plots, they unite their warring families and live happily ever after. This is the fairy tale I chose to subject myself to that evening.

Had I known the impact that a tiny click of the button would bestow, I may have picked differently. I may have cast aside anything from William Shakespeare and his constant deluge of wide-eyed love stories. As the movie's melodrama played out, I began to think of what I would like Mr. Shakespeare to know.

I would start with not all love is happy. I could rattle off many examples of painful, gut-wrenching love. Love that is torn apart by big moments like war or a natural disaster. It can also be destroyed in a quiet moment like the sigh of discontent or diverging paths' melancholy. Love can infiltrate you and tear you apart so quickly you didn't even see it coming.

Once I had shattered the sweet love trope to Mr. Shakespeare, I would move on to instant, world-changing love. Can two teenagers that eye each other across a crowded ball fall so instantly and madly in love with each other that they would not only risk the balance of the order the two warring families had reached but dare to try to bridge a rift that extended far before their births? No, they would not. It would be fun and exciting for a couple of weeks, and then, once the lustful magnetism of the forbidden love wore off and the effort needed to contrive encounters grew too much, they would move on. It would be fine; young hearts have resiliency.

Then in a final display of the horror he had inflicted on the world, I would denounce his insistence that love will always win out. How, in all his plays and poems, had he not once tackled the reality of love. The struggle to maintain it. The eviscerating emotions of losing it and the hallow empty of longing for it. Only then would Shakespeare truly understand love. Clearly, he had never felt the full impact of the emotion.

They were shallow thoughts that ran through my head. I was ignorant of any factual information on William Shakespeare, barring his romantic musings that had been forced upon me in high school English classes. Still, chiding this man from long ago for how little he understood love as a human condition was what I needed in my night of wallow. If I were mad at William Shakespeare, then in a way, I could blame my lonely state on him. The delusions he had created in my young impressionable teen mind had built up unrealistic expectations. It was cruel.

These rambling thoughts filled me as my eyelids grew heavy while the movie flickered on screen before me. The film began to be obscured by my thick eyelashes as my glasses fell askew before the warm waves of sleep finally pulled my eyelids fully closed, and I drifted away to dreams of Shakespeare and love.