Sorry I'm Late - a drunk Irishman asked me out

then he knocked over an entire bookshelf

Pretend this is him

This week, a group of ten-year-olds came into the bookshop as part of a school field trip to pick a few books for their classroom. They touched all the books. They knocked over several books. They tried to convince their teacher that they should buy our shiny bars of chocolate that we stock for Christmas. They rummaged through magazines, one boy opening one and pointing to an editor’s name and saying to me, “That’s my dad.”

The same boy, in his high-vis vest, sauntered over to Rebecca, who stood behind the register at the wooden counter.

“How many books are in this shop?” he asked, looking up at her.

“Four thousand five hundred,” Rebecca said, without blinking.

Rebecca remains perpetually unfazed. You can throw her the oddest request and she’ll genuinely consider it, which is a character trait I greatly appreciate. She’s also the best in the bookshop at making book recommendations.

A man came in asking for advice on what book to buy for his 18-year-old niece. He hadn’t seen her in ten years, but they were reuniting at a big family reunion that evening.  

Rebecca walked over to our fiction shelf and handed him a book called How to Kill Your Family.

The man read the title and laughed, in shock.

“It’s a dark, funny thriller,” I explained. “Not a guide.” He then bought it, which delighted us. 

Now that Lottie has left for Scotland, I’ve been working with Sadie, who is filling in until someone new starts next week (someone I haven’t even met yet!!). Sadie used to work here full-time but is now training to become a speech therapist and fills in when anyone is ill.

I don’t know Sadie well and remain somewhat intimidated by her. She’s very British and by this I mean she is enigmatic and I have no idea if she likes me or merely tolerates me.

She’s been going through a lot of heavy stuff, which I won’t write about here as it’s not mine to tell, but she’s understandably somber most days.

The bookshop is sort of a safe place where we don’t talk about sad things and instead we argue over what music to play. Sadie absolutely hates what she calls “music with words” which is what most people would call just “music.” Sadie says she has given a great deal of thought to what the perfect background bookshop music is and the answer is … Spanish guitar.

I once put on a Haim song and for a composed British woman, Sadie went absolutely ballistic, turning it off immediately. Apparently she has a personal vendetta against one of the singers for extremely niche reasons that I cannot reveal here without the threat of being sued (that’s how specific the grudge is). She refuses to let me play the Shins or Maggie Rogers or Nick Drake because, once again, “they have words.”

Two things lifted Sadie’s mood yesterday. First, a famous actress came into the bookshop. We didn’t realise it until after she had left – she was tall and hiding behind a baseball cap – and then we googled her loads and went over every single thing we said to her and what it would have sounded like to her and then we googled her boyfriend who was with her.

She was so extraordinarily beautiful while wearing no make-up, an oversized scarf and baseball cap. In fact, she looked far more beautiful than I thought she had ever looked on screen which is why I didn’t immediately recognise her.

The actress borrowed my pen to write messages in the book she bought, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, which is probably the book we have sold the most this year in the shop. The actress said the book will floor you if you read it – that every sentence is magic. She said it in this ethereal voice and at one point she and her boyfriend hugged for a solid 30 seconds in silence in front of Sadie and me, who stood very still as well, Spanish guitar playing in the background. The rain fell outside. The leaves blew. The actress swayed when she talked. Everything she did was theatrical.

I don’t know why so many celebrities and famous authors come into this tiny indie bookshop in London. I guess they have always lived in this neighbourhood, but I never saw them when I was wandering around. Now that I’m inside the bookshop several hours a week, they come to me.

The second thing that perked Sadie up was when I was telling her about how I was going to Paris soon to visit my college best friend Rachel, who lives there. I mentioned how I was scared of getting bed bugs in Paris.

Sadie was pouring coffee beans into the coffee machine when she stopped and put the bag down. 

“You’re scared of getting bed bugs?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. (Who isn’t scared of this?)

“You’re legitimately scared of getting bed bugs?” she asked again.

“Yes…” I said.

Sadie leaned back, her hands behind her, on the counter, staring at the ground. And she started shaking.

I stared at her, confused. And then I noticed, she was shaking with laughter. No, not just that. She was also crying with laughter.

“You’re. Scared. Of. Getting. Bed. Bugs,” she sputtered as tears filled her eyes. She repeated this two more times and then starting laughing silently with such force that she couldn’t say any more, just gripped the counter harder.

Okay, I see her point.

In light of everything that is going on right now, I am worried about…bugs. Tiny bugs following me home from France.

People were dead, people were dying, the world was burning and I was worried about what?

Sadie laughed and laughed and laughed. She took a deep breath and then wiped away her tears. She smiled for the first time that day.

And then the book deliveries came, and we got back to work.

This week, I went with Rebecca, Walter and Walter’s girlfriend (Beautiful Lucy) to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour film.

It was the kind of romantic theatre that has all the seats divided into rows of two, so Rebecca and I sat together. I’d heard rumours of fans singing and dancing and crying, but this theatre in London had about 8 people in it. Not one person stood up. In fact, we all reclined in our seats. The English are so unmoved sometimes – a focus group who had never heard of Taylor before would have behaved exactly as this audience did. Silence. Bewilderment. Silent bewilderment in darkness, quietly eating chocolate-covered malt balls. So in other words, my perfect Sunday evening.

Rebecca and I agree (know) that Taylor’s best song is the ten-minute version of “All Too Well.” Halfway through it, Rebecca leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Do you have to think about past relationships or old crushes to relate to her sad love songs?”

God, she is SO good at punching me in the heart and stomach at the same time. I guess I do???? Before I was married, I loved sad love song music. I was always in unrequited love with several people at once.

I’ve never understood the relevance of the question, “Did you fall in love with your partner at first sight?” I have fallen in love with hundreds of people at first sight. It’s all I did in college. No one reciprocated. In my early twenties, there is not a single dark-haired man with twinkly eyes I met that I didn’t imagine in a black peacoat holding my hand in the snow at Christmas (normal). And so the sadder the music, the better. Bright Eyes. Radiohead. Ryan Adams. My college roommate, a boarding school girl from Eastern Europe, called it, “Kill Me Now Music.”

Sad love songs don’t floor me the way they used to, and that makes me sad. Best case scenario in my life, I don’t get to fall in love again or get my heart stomped on again. But there was something deliciously rich about break-ups and unrequited love and a small part of me would love to be listening to Lana Del Rey while smoking a cigarette on stoop at 3am with silent tears running down my face.

Recently, Cara and I worked an evening book launch together. These are small parties to celebrate the publication of an author’s book, and we’re there to pour the wine and sell the books and then kick everyone out at 9pm.

That evening, I wore a very loose white and blue striped dress that could maybe, just maybe, on a good day be considered “business casual” and also I wore these horrible, vast sandals. By horrible I mean, they were extremely comfortable, Velcro-strappy, sandals, but I knew they did not look good.

After years of hiding away during peak Covid, I wore high heels to a wedding last year and I felt ridiculous, so about to topple over into the grass at any moment. Every step I took felt clunky and loud and off-balance. And hence, the flat sandals.

A drunk Irishman with dark hair and blue eyes asked me out at the book launch, and I think that is what is the most shocking aspect of this story – I wore these sandals, the size of small boats, and I got asked out. These sandals, the antithesis of sexy, the tired grandmother shoe of choice, got asked out. And I know the Irishman saw them because I remember thinking, “Why did I wear these God-awful ugly shoes in public?” when he did.

Did I flirt with him? I hadn’t thought so. He was friends with the author and in her speech she thanked him and she said that he had given her the idea for her book. Later, when I was pouring him a beer, I said, “I’m a writer. Do you have any book ideas for me?” which in retrospect, while writing that now, comes off as extremely flirty, and if my husband is reading this he will be rolling his eyes so hard, but it was a genuine question, not a romantic proposition. I don’t want an affair! Even with someone with an Irish accent! That sounds messy and complicated and life-ruining! I want something far more valuable – a red-hot book idea. Wouldn’t you have asked this man the exact same question?

Perhaps it’s because that night I wore gold hoop earrings. I never wear jewelry, but lately I’d noticed that Rebecca, Lottie, Cara and Sadie all wore gold hoop earrings and they looked so good on them. So good that I felt like I had to get gold hoop earrings – and that evening, they worked their spell. Though for full disclosure, I was the only straight woman at this book event (it was a book launch for lesbian single mother’s memoir) and he was the only straight man.

When the Irishman asked me out, he was so drunk that he knocked over an entire shelf of books and keychains and while we were both on the floor scrambling to pick them up, he said, “So where’s the afterparty?”

“I think they usually end up in the pub down the road. I think your friend will know,” I said.

“No…I meant…shall we go grab a drink now or what?”

Oh I was the afterparty.

I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to say. I never get asked out.

I had forgotten to wear my wedding ring that night because I always forget to wear my wedding ring. I didn’t want to say, “I forgot to wear my wedding ring!” I didn’t want to give a long rambling backstory. So I just said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I can’t…” with the emotional tenor of Siri and without any further explanation. Then I walked away. A few seconds later, I turned around and watched, relieved, as he bolted out the front door with his rucksack.

I immediately felt very awkward for the accidental flirting, but then a small part of me hopes the Irishman is on a porch stoop somewhere listening to Lana Del Rey and thinking about me and my massive sandals.

He’s not though, is he? He probably woke up with a dull headache, not remembering a thing.

His loss. It is heavenly to mourn what could have been. It is bliss to have low stakes unrequited / semi-requited love after a buzzy evening, every sad love song written for you. That night, I walked home in my huge broad sandals, silent on the pavement in the dark, home to my husband who was washing up in the kitchen.

There’s a popular TV show where the main characters are impossibly young and gorgeous. There’s also a love triangle and I was texting two friends about which love interest I personally preferred (Jeremiah) when both friends, separately, said, “No, Jess. We’re the moms now. We’re not the main characters anymore.” In this particular show, the two moms are best friends (the love triangle involves their respective teenage children). One of the moms is an Asian writer and the other mom, an artist and her best friend, is dying of cancer. It is heart-breaking. What do you mean your best friend can die? That thought has never entered my mind. My best friends saying “We’re the moms,” physically hurt on so many levels.

Tomorrow I pack for Paris. I will see my college best friend for the first time in nearly two years. I will eat croissants and drink coffee and we will talk and talk and talk, just like we did when we first met when we were 18 at Brown.

I’m finally realising that things can change in an instant, that the people we love will die someday, no matter how young we were when we met – and so I’m going to soak up all the joy I can, even when the weather forecast for Paris is rain rain rain. Rachel is one of the only people in the entire world who can make me laugh until I cry. I cannot wait. It’s going to be so good.

Unless I get bed bugs. I swear to God if I get fucking bed bugs, I will NOT be laughing, Sadie. Those tears will also flow freely.

You can read more of my writing by checking out my book, “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes.” (The UK version is “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously).

It’s about the year I spent: talking to strangers, performing stand-up comedy, travelling solo, trying out improv, going on friend dates and doing a bunch of extrovert-y things.  It’s about being an introvert and trying to extrovert for a full year. I interview brilliant people throughout the book who guide me through these nightmares.

It’s sold more than 140k copies, nearly entirely by word-of-mouth and I am so grateful to all of my readers.

Reviews for Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come

“I loved it! It’s such a wonderful title, and the book lives up to it’ Nigella Lawson 

‘In a world of self-care and nights in, this book will inspire and remind you to do some things that scare you every so often.’ Emma Gannon

‘Hilarious, unexpected and ultimately life-affirming.’ Will Storr

‘Funny, emotional and deeply inspiring, this is perfect for anyone wanting to break out of their comfort zone’  Heat

‘Beautifully written and so funny! I related to it A LOT’ – Emma Jane Unsworth

‘Relatable, moving and fantastically funny’ – Rhik Samadder

‘Tender, courageous and extremely funny, this book will make us all braver.’ Daisy Buchanan

‘A chronicle of Pan’s hilarious and painful year of being an extrovert.’ Stylist

‘Excellent, warm, hilarious.’ Nikesh Shukla

‘You WILL laugh and laugh while reading this.’ Sun

“Very funny, very smart” Liberty Hardy

Did you miss last week’s post?