Dub-less in Dublin: skeletons in the closet

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while–it’s actually the story that began Dubless in Dublin.  I’d like to say that it’s because I’ve had multiple papers and I am working on my dissertation, and while that’s true, we all know that never stopped me from cranking out a bangin nonfic essay.  Honestly, the more assignments the better the essay.  It was a year ago that I started this blog and was complaining about how much I’d been procrastinating, so what better way to bring in the new year “Between Sleeps.”  I wrote it from this same position in my bed and with the same little feeling in my stomach that writing this would start something I’d have to own up to.  That sounds dramatic but you are reading my words, my thoughts, and feelings.  Sometimes I forget to be scared.

I must warn you that this next story is not nearly as funny as the other stories that have graced the Dubless in Dublin series.  My capacity for humor is limited when it comes to dating because, while many of these stories are truly hilarious and don’t cause you to think twice about what you’re doing with your life, there’s stories like the next one that hit you like a punch in the gut, or the throat.  Pick your poison.

This next Dubless in Dublin is vulnerable, and I hate to admit that it’s because I’d hoped it might work out.  Well maybe ‘working out’ is too vague and that’s not really what I wanted.  Maybe I wanted to be wanted, wanted that spark, that excitement, that ‘for the plot’ situationship, that all consuming, wildly entertaining, and most likely unhealthy attachment.  These are the types of dating stories that simultaneously make you see what could be, and want to quit trying altogether.  

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So, the story is short, really. Girl goes to pub, boy meets girl, boy kisses girl, boy leaves girl confused as fuck. Just kidding, I wouldn’t do that to you!  You, lovely readers, get more than that!  But not every detail…because then we’d be here all day.  My goal is to give you just enough to show you why…no, how (I can’t begin to understand why)… I’ve been left so confused.

Remember before Christmas, I told you the story of dimension hopping in Joe Watty’s on Inis Mor?  If you haven’t read that, please do, that one is actually funny.  But this story happens at Joe Watty’s a little over a year before that dimension hopping experience back in early-October.  So, my first night ever in Joe Watty’s I saw a tall guy in a Lakers sweatshirt, blonde hair, blue eyes.  His eyes were on me, but not in the creepy way which all women have felt on the back of her neck.  I could just tell he noticed me.

Coming from the college I did, there were never really new people to meet.  Or maybe it just didn’t feel like it because you saw them in passing or knew them through friends of friends.  No one ever felt like a stranger.  So, when this guy in the Laker’s sweatshirt approached me as a complete stranger, I had no idea what to expect.

His opening line was something to the effect of i’ve noticed you staring at me. Caught red handed…I swear usually I’m better at the art of drawing attention to myself at the bar. Usually it’s me being the tall one in a bar, wearing sweats in a bar, drinking like a man in a bar, or dancing in a bar. Never had it been for staring at a man so obviously that he came over to tell me he noticed. To save myself from the embarrassment of being called out I said i noticed your lakers sweatshirt, my dad was a huge fan but i hate basketball so it never really took with me. Wow Maddy, WEAK.

He told me he had no connection to the Lakers, he just took it from a friend, he was on Inis Mor for work, grew up and still lives in Connemara, owns a sea kayak company, his first language is Irish, and so on. He bought me a baby guinness and we danced for hours.

Many of my nights out blend together with nothing to distinguish them from one another; surrounded by friends, probably drinking a Corona at some point in the night, laughing, and chatting.  The nights that I remember are the ones where I end up dancing for most of the night.  This was one of those nights I’ll remember if not for the man in the Lakers sweatshirt but for the dancing and the loud music and the floor that cleared so the rest could watch us spin.  In those hours dancing with the man in the Lakers sweatshirt, I really didn’t care what happened next.  The baby guinness was just a bonus.

Joe Watty’s was winding down and he said he had weed and asked if I wanted to join him and I said yes and we left to find a place to split a joint. We ended up in the old telephone booth that was long empty and then behind the Protestant church long abandoned and then by the docks and then he tried to get me home to his bed. I told him i don’t go home with strangers and you could be an axe murderer and my mother would not be happy to find out i disappeared in ireland. So, instead he walked me back to where I was staying, got down on one knee and asked for my snap and said goodnight as the horizon was turning from a deep indigo to a fading grey that would soon light up with pinks and oranges. How romantic…right?

The next day I left to return to Dublin and then a few weeks later I left to go home to Maine. Not much materialized. He occasionally swiped up on a story and I could tell he thought I was funny, or endearing, or thoughtful. And one time I said something about my favorite poem by Khalil Gibran and weeks later he sent a picture of the new book he bought–The Prophet and then shared his thoughts on the collection. And he found me on Instagram six months later, notable only because he didn’t have an account when I first met him. And reply snap: what’s your karaoke song and how many drinks till you’re singing it and the response, something by ABBA and no drinks needed. And then, he invited me to Boston for St. Patty’s because he was visiting family for a week. And then, I moved to Dublin this past August.

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We ended up reconnecting in early October. It was the day after my friends and I returned from our most recent dimension-hopping experience in Joe Watty’s. Hugs at the train station as they left for Dublin and I had a couple hours to kill before I got picked up to go back to his house in Connemara. It was in these couple hours that excitement went to dread and anxiety. what the fuck have i done…he could be an axe murderer and he’s still a stranger and the only thing to stop my mind from spinning was to dive into a novel to forget the rest of the world.

Well, he arrived.  I didn’t die.  We both said we were nervous.  But the awkwardness thawed before we left city limits.  We then talked about everything under the sun, hopes and dreams, life’s challenges, academic interests, funny stories.  It had never been that easy to talk to someone I’d only met for a night and watched from a distance over the past year.  It was like we were dancing again, perfectly in tune with the other, moving further and then closer, on our way somewhere while also not moving very far from the place we started.

I asked to borrow a jumper because the one I had packed smelled like beer, sweat, and Joe Watty’s from the night before. The one he pulled out of the drawer was…you guessed it…the Lakers sweatshirt. do you remember this? he said with a knowing smile. Yes, yes I do remember.

We left his place on the water and went to the pub in his small town to meet his best friend. He said in the car you’ll do great, I must’ve seemed nervous. Aren’t there implications that come with meeting the best friend? Or am I weaving my own meaning into a completely harmless fact? I didn’t sign up for another stranger tonight, one was definitely enough. But to be fair, the man somehow didn’t feel like a stranger.

His best friend was pleasant to talk to. We talked about him getting married in the summer to the girl he’s been with since he was fifteen and Irish fascination with American politics and how fisheries in Ireland got fucked when they joined the EU and how most people in Connemara are married with kids by thirty.

And then, I was left at the bar alone with the best friend and I lamented that I didn’t really know why I ended up all the way out here and the best friend said you know, he really likes you. He returned from the bathroom before I could do anything more than deliver a look of absolute shock. He had told me he wants to be married by thirty, kids by thirty three, and he said I’m keeping you around as he reached for my hand. Against my will, the seed of hope that this might be something had sprouted.

The next day we woke to the sunshine and high tide and drove back to Galway for breakfast. At the train station, a hug, a kiss, a promise to visit Dublin even though he hated it, and I want to see you soon. And I walked away believing I would see him again. Oh, and wearing his Lakers sweatshirt which I. swear. to. God. it was a mistake–one I’m regretting at the moment.

To spare you the gory details of the week following I’ll give you a synopsis. I invite him to do something in Dublin, he says no and by the way i won’t be coming to dublin anytime soon, this is just casual, sorry if that hurts your feelings. And then he goes on to say, but if you’re ever in galway please feel free text or call me. Oh and the kicker was when he said maybe it would be different when i get meds for adhd. Sit with that for a minute while you let the choking feeling of a gut punch wear off.

While my feelings were, in fact, a little hurt, I was mostly confused by the complete flip from his behavior in person to over text, and the sudden wondering if I misheard his best friend, and did he actually mean I should still text him if I was back in town, and annoyed that I now had his stupid(!) sweatshirt. The rug had been yanked and I was pissed off. But beyond that, I was embarrassed that I’d let myself entertain the daydreams I had found myself so prone to when it came to him. It’s not often I let any seeds of hope take hold because it mostly just ends in uproot. And even beyond that, I was sad that I’d been rejected.

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See?  I told you this one would be vulnerable and I truly am sorry I could not bring the same humor and light-heartedness to this episode as I have been bringing to the other installments of Dubless in Dublin.  But, even though our dating stories have provided laughs around the world, it isn’t always fun and games.  For many, the end goal is a life partner.  I mean, this guy wanted to be married by thirty and him being a fresh twenty-seven you’d think he’d be a bit more intentional…or maybe just less avoidant. 

So, I still have this Laker’s sweatshirt in my closet and I don’t know what to do with it. I’m not so sad about being rejected anymore, although it did sting like relationships past when hopeful seedlings were yanked from the soil by stubborn men who couldn’t bear to grow. I did text him when I was back in Galway and he responded but nothing materialized. Now, I don’t text and I don’t think about him as much beyond the brief oh what could have been.

It’s hard because I want to trust myself. I want to trust the intuition and the real interactions that we had. But I’m left feeling, not only confused but, crazy. Like not the fun and wild crazy that I aspire to be…like the batshit, she’s seeing things kind of crazy. It’s hard to believe your lived experience when, so suddenly, it turns out to be a weed made for pulling out at the root.

It feels strange that I still have the Lakers sweatshirt.  Do I send it to the charity shop?  Try to give it back?  Hold onto it to remember the dancing that mesmerized those around us?  Throw it away?  Wear it like there’s no story to it?

To throw it away feels vengeful and I’m not.  Sending it to the charity shop feels like that would erase the story altogether.  There would be nothing tying this memory to any sort of reality and he would drift off into oblivion, nothing more than a memory and then just a figment of my imagination.  But I haven’t seen him since, so how probable is it that I will actually return it?  And then wearing it like any other sweatshirt is the daily reminder I don’t necessarily think I can handle.  

Is that bad?  Maybe not.  But it certainly points in the direction ofction of the ‘she’s not over it’ category.  And that there, that’s the throat punch–suffocating and unsuspecting.  I can try to tell myself whatever I want, but I still haven’t gotten rid of the god damn Lakers sweatshirt.  So now, it just sits at the bottom of the pile because I can’t bear to let the memory fade nor can I act like it doesn’t still nag at me.  Talk about skeletons in the closet.  

It’s best to dress skeletons so they don’t scare so much—the summer dress eager to be worn when the sun shines, the wool sweater made for damp winters, the favorite jeans that will be worn forever and ever. Maybe then the skeletons of persistent memories won’t be so scary and I’ll really believe the best is yet to come.