Back in March, less than a month after arriving in Dublin I wrote a blog entitled It is a universal truth that a single women must be in want of a partner. I had just moved to Dublin and was annoyed with people wanting to set me up or assuming that I needed a man. 6 months on and it is a different story….
After settling in to Dublin life I decided to give dating a try. Not knowing many people here I decided to jump into the online dating scene and try out Plenty of Fish – a dating app I had previously used in Australia… Maybe my Ex should have been a warning sign of things to come… There are definitely Plenty of Fish in Ireland, however all the ones I meet were catfish!
Guy 1
The first person I meet was an Irish guy in his early 30s (let’s call him Guy 1). I wasn’t sure what I was looking for at this stage, friendship or something more? But the date went well, we went out to dinner and then to a bar afterwards and chatted into the wee hours of the morning. I even got a present at the end of the night, Kevin my Koala. It was a great date, and was shortly followed up by another and another. Guy 1 was very attentive more dinners, drinks and even a music festival were all quick to follow and as Guy 1 steamed headfirst down the relationship rabbit hole I tried my best to keep everything slow, casual and just fun.
Although I would usually say it is more about spending quality time with a person than how much money you spent on them, I have to admit I was enjoying all the extravagant dates. If this is what dating in Dublin was all about sign me up!
About a month after I first meet Guy 1 the text messages died off and the calls stopped. For a week I tried to initiate conversations a few times but in the end decided I would wait until Guy 1 contact me. Finally after no contact for a fortnight I was pissed off and but before I went flying off the handle at him I thought I would send a simple text asking ‘What happened?’
After a fortnight of no contact Guy 1’s response was not wholly unexpected, he had changed his mind, he didn’t want a relationship and felt things were heading that way…. No shit Sherlock, you were the one pushing for the relationship.
I was disappointed, although I didn’t want to jump into a full on relationship so quickly I had enjoyed dating Guy 1. I replied to Guy1 questioning his motives and pointing out the consequences of his actions. I told him if he hadn’t wanted a relationship he shouldn’t have acted like he wanted one. I also berated him on his lack of communication, if he had changed his mind that is fine but tell the other bloody person. It might be a hard conversation to have but it is the respectful thing to do. I was honest and told him how disrespectful his behaviour was and how he had now made me weary of Irish men. I was surprised when he responded apologising for his behaviour, and a second message the following day further apologising was an even bigger surprise, but at that stage not even a friendship was worth trying to salvage. Thus was the end of Guy 1.
Guy 2
A week or two later I decided to try again and agreed to go out with another Irish guy around my age – Guy 2. Guy 2 was out to impress. For our first date we went to Bull Island, Guy 2 pulled out a blanket, laptop and picnic basket and we watched the Jungle Book while eating cheese and drinking red wine. While on the date we organised to meet up again on Sunday morning to do a high ropes course and go zip lining. The zip lining was a lot of fun, we did have a couple of the awkward getting to know you bits thrown in and he did keep bursting out in songs from the Jungle Book but we had a good day and as Guy 2 dropped me home he talked eagerly of going out again soon.
A couple days later Guy 2 sends a random text about the gym and PokemonGo but when I try to create a real conversation there’s no reply…. Apparently PokemonGo is more interesting than a real life girl. Finally a week later bored, slightly tipsy and sick of the muck around I sent a text message asking if Guy 2 wanted to go to Dalkey Island on the Sunday. He quickly responded that he was keen to go with me and we organised to go the next Sunday. However Sunday came and an hour before we were meant to head off I received a text message saying he was too hung over to go. He text later that day asking if I had ended up going and telling me all about his hang over but I never responded. Strike 2 for Irish men.
Guy 3
Finally after another few weeks I decided to give the whole dating thing a try once again and agreed to meet up with Guy 3 (my third Irish guy) for fries and shake after work one evening, a very 1950’s diner date. Everything went well, Guy 3 was engaging, laughing at all of my jokes, asking lots of questions and not holding back when I asked him questions…. Even his keen interest in Anime was a topic I could talk about.
I wasn’t sure if there was any romantic connection there but we did have a good time and as he left me at my door Guy 3 suggested we meet up again on Sunday for Pizza and a pint. Well maybe date number two would tell me if there was anything there…. Minutes after he left he messaged me and we chatted back and forth briefly. When I jumped on the computer later that night I noticed he had deleted his profile from the dating website… a bit soon but ok, he must be optimistic. Sunday came and I sent him a message asking if he still wanted to go for the pizza and pint, I never received a reply back…. By Monday I had blocked the guy.
That was it, saying I was pissed and confused would be an understatement. Each of these men had professed to want a relationship or acted in a way that would say they were looking for something serious. They had misled me, lied and had been down right disrespectful and I deserved better than that. It was not like I was some crazy stalker women, I had never bombarded a guy with messages, tried to discuss marriage or babies, been demanding on his time (I have a life too you know) and at the end of a date I had never left thinking “well that’s the end of that!”
What the hell was going on? How was I attracting these men? Even worse… Was I the problem? Did my independent Australian female ways not align to the Irish dating scene? – Well if that is the case good riddance, I wasn’t changing who I am. A friend of mine believed that maybe Guy 3 was married and had a case of the guilt’s after our date. But either way I was just confused by what was going on.
I had had enough, No More Irish Guys was my new motto.
Guy 4
I persevered on and organised my fourth and final date. I was determined that Guy 4 would not be Irish and started talking to an Indian guy who had grown up in the States and moved to Ireland a few years earlier. We appeared to have a few similar interests, were both experienced living overseas away from our mummies, and he was good looking according to his pics.
Warning bells started ringing though before we had even gone on our first date. Guy 4 kept sending me selfies and wanting me to send him selfies, which I flat out refused to do and told him that sending guys selfies wasn’t my thing. Then while at work Guy 4 asked me to call him and was surprised when I told him I was at work, later that night he called me back just to chat, I told him it that was a little too much considering he had been text me all day and we hadn’t even meet.
I had organised to meet Guy 4 in a restaurant / bar on a Friday night. He had given me the name of the place but it turn out he had confused it with the café next door, so after a bit of mucking about I finally found him. Considering that both venues had a restaurant I was disappointed to find out Guy 4 hadn’t considered this a dinner date, instead eating before coming out. Guy 4 had thought it was just drinks and then hit the night clubs…. Apparently he missed the part where I told him I wasn’t interested in going to a night club. Me and my empty stomach were not impressed, and I didn’t feel comfortable eating while my “date” sat there and watched. Guy 4 spent the night talking about himself, trying to tell me the same stories over and over again, and although we had agreed not to discuss our work for over half the night he talked about his work or tried to ask questions about my work. By 11pm I was over it, I was tired and I wanted to go home. Guy 4 tried to walk me home however I insisted on catching a cab. Hangry me was further enraged (never mess with a hungry woman) when he pulled me away from the curb insisting that it was safer for me to stand back and he hail my cab. No thank-you. I happily left him on the street to catch his own cab home.
By the time I got home I already had three messages saying what a great night he had had. I ignored the message knowing in my hungry state I would not say anything nice. By the next morning I had another four messages including one asking to go out again that evening. Later that morning I finally replied telling him I was going out with my friends, and intended to tell him later that I was not interested. Instead Guy 4 replied saying he would be free that evening to go out if my plans changed or he could meet up with me and my friends. I meet my friends and while out received about another half dozen messages saying how much he enjoyed meeting me, a link to a song he thought reflected the date, how he felt we had a lot in common, how he missed my company, and how he really hoped we could go out again that evening. By this stage I was annoyed and starting to feel a bit stressed by the intensity of Guy 4’s messages. By the time I got home that afternoon I had even more messages from the guy. That was it. I had intended to tell the guy I was not interested but by this stage he was stressing me out and I was exhausted. I turned off the data to my phone, and when he started calling me I turned my phone off completely. I know, I know not very mature or respectful.
The next morning I woke up, jumped on my laptop and found an app that would block calls and text messages. I turned my phone on, saw my phone start to ping over and over again with the missed calls and messages, installed the number blocking app and blocked his number. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with my decision. I thought the guy deserved to be told why he was being blocked, however at the same time I could imagine the flood of calls and text messages I would receive in response and I didn’t want to deal with it.
Next I deleted my profile on Plenty of Fish. What started out as being a way to have fun, meet new people with similar interests, and potentially find my next relationship turned into a stressful nightmare. I was left completely confused by the first three men that I had meet and ready to immigrate back to Australia just to escape the fourth guy.
For the time being I am having a break from dating. I am just going to hang out with my friends and have fun. At least I know my friends are all normal-ish.
But it was alright, I had organised a credit card with HSBC for when shit really hit the fan. So I went and found the credit card and went off to save myself. The credit card didn’t work. I checked my account and there was an outstanding balance of 0.34c and almost $6,000 available to access. Well that didn’t make sense. I called HSBC and they advised me that I had been due to pay the 0.34c mid-July and as I had not paid the 0.34c a block had been put on my credit card.
This on its own had me anxious. But what tipped the place over the scales for me was the neighbourhood. I had only visited the neighbourhood once on viewing the property and had been told that it was a working class area. However as I was moving in, the men across the street started catcalling and as I walked home that evening from a friend’s house and saw the drug addicts, drunkards and violence that was on the street I became even more anxious.
The room is smaller but I am hopeful that it will work a lot better for me. The much bigger wardrobe is a bonus, the privacy of a window looking out into someone back yard instead of the main street is also nice, and there is more usable space as there is no fireplace in the centre of the room. Not to mention the rent is slightly cheaper. Things weren’t so bad and I thought things were looking up from the bad situation I had impulsively threw myself into….
I knew this was a competency based interview which meant that the interviewee’s would be looking for answers using the STAR method. Situation, Task, Action, Result. It had become a very popular model used to access interviewees across the board, but knowing this and signing it in practice are two completely different things. I went through all of the different area’s that I knew the questions would be based around, people management, skills and expertise, communication, commitment and drive, etc. and wrote up standard dot point answers using the STAR method for each of these potential areas of questioning.
I was especially taken by the views shortly after I passed between Torc Waterfall and headed over the top of the range before I headed back into the valley towards Galway’s Bridge. Up here you could see down into the valley below but were not quite at the peak of the range, you had a mix of jaggered rocky mountain sides and open fields with little running streams and wild deer grazing, which eventually lead to one particular field with a small waterfall with a pebble shoreline where you could sit and enjoy a break. It was all starting to make me think of the Jane Austin tv movies I had seen over the years and it was easy to imagine this landscape hadn’t changed much in the last 200 years, especially when there was not a power pole or any other sign of industrialisation in sight.
The next day I was up and out of bed by 7.30am, where I was again greeted by an array of food from my host. I had told Sheila the night before I didn’t want too much for breakfast, a little bacon and maybe some eggs would be fine but in traditional grandmotherly style a plate piled high with bacon, scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes, toast, fruit, orange juice, tea, jam and butter sat on the table waiting for me. I ate heartily knowing the 20km journey I had to make back to Killarney would be exhausting and knowing I would probably only stop to eat a banana on the trail. After breakfast I profoundly thanked Sheila and headed back the way I came.
I finally arrived back at the Lake House Hotel (as planned) in time for lunch. I had previously visited the Lake House Hotel with some of my extended Irish relations and had really enjoyed the food here as well as the view out across the lake so it was a no brainer to finish my journey here. I was able to get a window seat and celebrated the completion of my 40+km hike (and my birthday) with a glass of red wine and an amazing leg of roast lamb.
I am not the best patient, when I get sick I get “man flu” and think its the end of the world. I don’t battle through it, instead I crawl back into bed and wait for the end… or my recovery. In Australia, when I was living at home (and I may have tried this a couple of times after moving out) I would text my daddy to bring me water, boost juice, toast, a bucket, etc. as I lay in bed dying.
After my concussion, I was talking to a work colleague, who was shocked to realise I didn’t have anyone to check on me while I was concussed and insisted in exchanging numbers so if anything did happen I could contact her. I now also realise that I do have a group of friends that if needed I could call on for help.
Over the next couple of days as I began to recover I realised just how bad I had being. I returned to work on Tuesday, feeling better than I had on Monday but probably still not really right to be at work. The room would still warp from time to time, and my comprehension was still mediocre at best but as they say… fake it until you make it. Being new to the company and still on a temporary contract I didn’t want to let something as trivial as a mild concussion get in the way of a possible permanent position.
By the end of my first day I was feeling very confident in my abilities, I was lured into a false sense of ease by the lack of exhaustion in my upper body which I had been expecting, and as I had managed not to capsize all day I was now a master of the seas. The couple of small bumps to the head from the boom when I failed to react quickly enough or the freezing rain in the afternoon hadn’t ruined what I had felt had been a great day.
By the end of the weekend, with my Level One – Start Sailing certificate in hand, I felt thoroughly happy with my sailing adventure. I had really enjoyed sailing in the little Pico’s and already had plans on my next holiday to rent a little dinghy and sail around the bay of a new city. But I have not lost sight of my Mediterranean dreams and am already planning to undertake my level two course in August.
During the week I made a new friend, he’s an Australian who’s been living in Ireland the last few years. His name is Kevin and he is a koala.
Don’t worry, I am not about to set Kevin up with his own Facebook page. But Kevin the koala reminded me of Yellow Ted. So this weekend when I decided to go on my mini adventure Kevin came with me.
nderstood me telling him the water was not hot enough yet for the wife to shower. I had then left the house and no one turned the hot water off after his wife had showered, so he had a go at me for leaving it on… I, being a bit fed up at this stage and didn’t back down, in the end after a few harsh words I just walked away with nothing resolved and things had been tense between us since.
In my new place, we signed all of the leasing documents before I moved in; receipts were given and each tenant even has an ongoing spreadsheet of expenses. I have meet the landlords and there is a much more open and by the book approach to the rental of the property.
Charmaine Pearce 