Alright guys, let’s get serious for a second…have you ever left this dimension? Because we have. Oh, where’s the portal you ask? Ti Joe Watty’s on Inis Mor in Galway Bay, if you must know. Things happen in Joe Watty’s that would (maybe the better word is should) never happen in this dimension. Seeing your roommate, age 22, with the thirty something year old bike guy from the bathroom window?? Yep. Another thirty something telling the other roommate that he was in a tough spot because he’s juggling a situationship? Obviously. A man no taller than five foot seven wearing a suit flirting with me–a (much taller than him) girl in an oversized sweatshirt and a flat brim? Only in Joe Watty’s.
And even still, someone thinking your college sweatshirt is the name of your boyfriend plastered across your chest as if he owns you? Only natural. A man (read: boy) who seems so sloshed that you are genuinely intrigued what he will be like tomorrow and usually you never get to know but this time you see him on the ferry the next morning because there’s only two boats leaving the island? We call him Red Shirt Guy. Me saying a man could never own me like that and him responding oh I don’t know, it’s kinda cute! and me walking away without saying anything? Yeah, that really does exist somewhere, but not in our own dimension.
And I will finish by saying that the reason I bore witness to most of this and didn’t create the chaos as I normally do is because the next day I was meeting up with the guy I met at Joe Watty’s more than a year before (but that’s a story for another week) only proving that Joe Watty’s brings you to another dimension.
Dear reader, I feel so conflicted giving you such a tantalizing taste of another dimension without any of the details leading up to it. Perhaps those details prior to walking through the portal door will provide context…maybe it’s simply a you had to be there *shrug* moment. Regardless, the lead up is crucial for you to know to understand the parts of the story you have yet to read. (I know that is suspenseful and dramatic…but really, I’ve already told you the juiciest stuff and the rest is more for my own storytelling fun…but I digress, continue on, dear reader).
The first night on Inis Mor we found our way to the bar. Sorry, The Bar–one of three pubs on the island–and ate a hearty meal and made our way back to the hotel. The following day, we found ourselves back in The Bar for dinner and the World Cup rugby match. Much different than the previous night, the pub was packed by 6:30pm and we had to wrestle for a table to fit four. It seemed like the whole island had made their way to The Bar for the match, including the man who rented us our bikes for the day–henceforth known as Bike Guy. Not only was there Bike Guy, but also a group of men looking as though they were out to party for the weekend. We later found out that they had been mates in secondary school and they left their wives and children for the weekend to go to Inis Mor, although we were not privy to this until much later in the evening after some questionable behavior.
The match was exciting and Ireland won in one of the lowest scoring games I’ve ever seen! according to a very weathered man. I don’t watch enough rugby to know that, but The Bar was abuzz with victorious chatter and earnest hope that Ireland would be playing Halloween weekend (the final). As any good sleuths we had our eyes out for wedding rings and any other glaring red flags present on the remotely attractive men milling about. Of the mates from secondary school, all but one had a ring on his finger. Perfect, he was good-looking and I could tell he’d been looking over at our table. And sometimes, the best wingwoman move is to turn and talk to the person next to you, leaving your friend open to talk to attractive strangers. So, that’s what I did. I turned and talked to the girl next to me, keeping an eye on the one single guy who stopped to chat with my dearest roommate.
And with the smoothness of homemade peanut butter, he opens with were you watching the match? Please note, this is a weak opening…we were all at the pub to watch the game and the entire time we were looking at the screen and cheering when they scored. Let’s be a little more creative perhaps? Because when you deliver a weak opening, you’ll get a weak return. And now that I’m thinking about it, it’s the weak opening that tells me he relies too heavily on a good looking face. Anyway, my roommate answered yes, were you? To which he responds, yeah I mean I was watching the match but I also was watching you…you’re fucking gorgeous. Woah woah woah, bold start there bud. More proof, perhaps, that he knows he’s got a decent face. So, my roommate gets his name (Dan) and that he’s visiting with friends from boarding school but he lives in Blackrock but he’s trying to move back to London and works in finance. Dear readers, that says quite a lot about a man.
As The Bar was clearing out and the mates from secondary school told us we should meet them at Joe Watty’s, we got intercepted by an aging and proud Connemara man, insistent on buying us a round of a) slippery nipples or b) baby guinnesses. At this point we (fearlessly led by my dear friend and roommate, a true American Girl Doll) were deep in conversation with Bike Guy and his cousin who looked like he did not want to be there. His face drooped like he really didn’t like his life but wasn’t willing to do anything about it and felt like he should bring everyone down just a notch. He was one of those guys that no one wants to talk to and then he wonders why he’s all alone when all he needs is a mirror.
To pass the time at The Bar, and finish our beers, we played Cheers to the Governor, an elaborate game that started as an icebreaker at camp when we were young. Us girls had the hang of it quickly, but inviting Bike Guy and his cousin in was a sure way to ruin the vibe. Thus, moving on to Joe Watty’s became that much more alluring. Bike Guy’s cousin was adamantly against it, however I don’t know why that mattered because we didn’t want him to join anyway. Perhaps, we wanted Bike Guy to come along and Bike Guy wanted his cousin there…? Finally, I got the girls out the door (of course, after the slippery nipples and baby guinness) not knowing if Bike Guy would follow, but let’s be real I knew he would…a wingwoman has a way of knowing these things.
When we entered Joe Watty’s it was already in full swing. Live music, a woman and her friends celebrating her third 50th birthday, the mates from boarding school, and a new group we hadn’t met yet–chief among them Red Shirt Guy. Bike Guy wasn’t far behind, but had lost his sad cousin in the commute. He found my roommate quickly and promptly started buying her drinks, like any gentleman would. It wasn’t long before he was trying to convince her to leave the bar…nay, begging her to leave the bar with him. And everybody knows that when you leave the bar together that can only mean one thing. He tried everything from we’ll have fun, to it’ll be all about you, to joking (but probably serious) that he would be sooo lonely without her tonight. To which my roommate stood strong and gave just as many excuses to not leave with him as he gave reasons to go home–tonight is girls’ night, we have a ferry to catch in the morning, and most logically (and in my opinion giving the most fuck off energy) I don’t go home with strangers.
Now this would be an opportunity for Bike Guy to insist that he’s not like other guys but instead uses this as an opportunity to say that he is actually just like all other guys in Ireland because stranger danger isn’t really a thing here. Alright bud, you try being a foreigner, a woman, literally anyone but a white man and stranger danger is very much a thing everywhere. His final effort after ditching all honor and self control he says that all he wants are kisses and cuddles. How romantic! Tonight, he’d have to settle for a little kiss behind Joe Watty’s and hope that next time he was in Dublin he’d score some of those kisses and cuddles he was so keen on. (The attempt was made. And it did fail. Fatally. We haven’t heard from him since.)
I hope you, dearest reader, are feeling as drunk and dizzy as I was during this dimension hopping excursion because by this point I could not keep up and Red Shirt Guy wanted to dance and the fifty year old women were chatting me up and the bartender from our first night on the island brought her granny, father, and little brother with her to Joe Watty’s and I had lost sight of my roommate with Bike Guy and the other roommate was outside with Dan and the other friend we came with was dancing and being asked to take selfies with the mates from secondary school (we decided that if our future spouses did that we would consider homicide and divorce–in that order).
But Dan from Blackrock and my other roommate had made their way outside to the picnic tables to have a nice chat. And well, let me just cut to the scene: I don’t know if I can do this with you. I think he was hoping that my friend would double down and try to make it work like too many women our age do. Instead she responded, that’s okay! I am happy to be your friend, it was so lovely to meet you. Which is a little too nice in my opinion. NO we can’t be friends. I obviously want to be more than your friend! Oh really Dan, friends don’t tell friends you look fucking gorgeous after a weak opening in The Bar in this dimension? He needed no prompting–you see, it’s just hard because I’m kind of in a situationship…Jesus Fuck Daniel (I am assuming that is his full name) you have a situationship?? At 33 no less??
Okay okay, now that I’ve taken exactly two deep breaths, I can identify what actually bothers me about this. To me, situationship is a Gen Z term. I may be wrong, but that is how I associate the word. So, for Daniel to be in a situationship while talking to a girl he KNEW was 21 smells motherfucking fishy to me. Especially when his way of relating to the youth (read: the girl he was trying to hook up with) was saying he could talk about TikTok.
And guys, my roommate is so kind and generous she responds oh gosh, again, no worries! I am very happy to remain friendly—again, it was so lovely meeting you. To which he responded: No. That’s not what I want. I imagine a little childlike temper tantrum at this point where he stomps his feet and scrunches his face into a little frown. Well, I don’t know what you want. Fair play by my roommate. With what I imagine is a cheeky glance down the road and a little smirk he responds well if I had it my way, I would go fuck you senselessly over there pointing in the general direction of the park entrance down the street from Joe Watty’s. Where’s my jaw, you ask? On the floor. What a treat he must be in bed.
While this is happening, the friend who was whisked away behind the pub in an effort to get her home makes a quick return to the dance floor and asks to retreat to the safety of the ladies toilet to tell me that we need to leave now or it’s about to get awkward. Well it actually was already awkward because upon telling him she was 22 he responded eh doesn’t matter anyways. SIR! She is clearly telling you because it does matter and wants you to acknowledge that there is an inherent power difference between someone in their thirties and someone fresh out of college. But sure, we can pretend it doesn’t matter. Anyway, a good wingwoman doesn’t ask (too many) questions when a friend is in distress so we collect the friend dancing with the married men–after another selfie, of course–then head out to find our friend still talking to Dan. We ask if she is alright and wants to join us on our walk home. Oh, I’m alright! I’ll see you guys in a bit. Vague, yet reassuring.
So we continue on in hopes not to encounter Bike Guy again. We pass the guard watch booth and the old dilapidated Protestant Church and down the hill on the winding road. As we are approaching the hotel, I get it in my head that I’m fast as fuck bro and take off. I swear I was not that drunk and that there was a goblin in the pavement because I ended up eating shit in the driveway. Naturally, I made quite a bit of noise because a) I had a few new bumps, bruises, and scrapes (one of which I still have months later) and b) it was fucking hilarious. The security guard was alerted to my fall, probably because of the noise and it was right outside his door, and he came outside not to check to see if I was alright. No, he came out and said hey, it’s late, would you mind being a little quieter. Yeah sure man, let me just assess the amount of blood on my hand and I’ll be on my merry way.
The three of us made it back to the hotel room and I stripped off my clothes that smelled of beer and sweat and hopped in the shower while we waited for our fourth to arrive back. In the time that I was in the shower, our dear roommate arrived home from being with Dan. Much quicker than I expected…but hey, I don’t judge. Turns out she actually left Dan only ten minutes after us and walked home with the father of our bartender from the night before, chatting to him as though she hadn’t just been asked to be fucked senselessly behind the bushes they were walking past.
We tucked ourselves into our bunk beds after debriefing the entire night and finally arriving back in our own dimension. We set our alarms to make the ferry with plenty of time and slept as well as anyone who left their home dimension could.
The next morning on the ferry there was a certain malaise over the young adults on board and each of the four of us didn’t say a single word to each other. All of the sudden we hear this voice, so distinct and loud over the rest. This time, though, there was no red shirt, nor was he glistening with sweat. My roommate turned around as she heard his voice and made the most intense eye contact with Red Shirt Guy. A small, knowing smile lifted across his face as my roommate looked at him, horrified that he was, in fact, real and not a figment of another dimension. There was no denying it, they both knew that Joe Watty’s was actually a very real place where very real things happen.
That Place Between Sleep and Awake: That Place Where You Remember Dreaming 
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