ringlessandreckless

So, after 23 years of being with the one man, what seemed like a good idea on the night was to smooch the face off someone who was ‘separated’, had 2 kids but still lived with his wife. Yeah good plan Andi- just what you need right now. Get involved in someone’s weird grey- area marriage. He was also a retired Garda.

That should have been my queue to do as any normal person does when confronted with a Garda and..run! How or never, I stayed for some further investigation.. ok ok I’m done with the Garda puns. 

So Lorns and I had started as we meant to go on. We made a pact to go out every weekend where possible before she left me for the sunnier climes of Sydney at the end of April… we were making the most of our time together as the two singletons of the group. Represent! 

The two weeks previous to the Garda encounter we tactfully planned our night out around rugby. Ireland V Italy to be specific. Hoping for some handsome Italian men to chat to. Mission accomplished in O’Donohues.. although the demographic was slightly off and they were old enough to be our dads. Arrivederci! 👋 

Normally rugby pubs or you know the type of pub are my idea of hell, pothole central. But given the weekend that was in it we chose Searson’s as our target-rich environment the following week. That evening Ireland played Wales. Another win for us. On our walk from The Bath pub where we had somehow made light work of a bottle and half of a delicious white wine after pre-drinks in Lorna’s beforehand we acquired two men unwillingly on our walk there. They were two friendly Welsh men in their Wales jerseys.They were putting in the spade work for sure, then we clocked the wedding rings they were both wearing! So after a bit we naturally tried to shake them off. Why bother wasting anyone’s time. No such luck for a while. We arrived at Searsons and tried to come up with a plan to get rid of these cock- blockers. 

A few minutes in and I spotted a man who looked familiar from a previous organised event shall we say I had attended at Christmas time. I saw him, he saw me. We locked eyes for a few seconds. I waved at him and he did the whole pointing to himself thing and looking behind him ‘ you talking to me?’ So, over I went and I said ‘ I know you’ to which he replied;’ I have never seen you before in my life’. Deadpan, straight face. I laughed and said ‘haha, fuck off!’ 

He kept the act going for a solid minute or two, or at least until I thought ‘shit’ but there was no way. I knew I had met him before. I knew his name and what he did for a living. Weird yes, but ask any of my friends or anyone who knows me, I would make the best detective. Being a Garda is actually one of the jobs I wanted to do when I was younger. Maybe I haven’t missed my calling just yet. 

I said ‘your name is (insert fake name) James!’ He said ‘nope, my name is Paul. I laughed again and told him to shut up. So I then turned to Lorns and said ‘this is James, I met him at Christmas at that function and he thinks he is hilarious by trying to gaslight me into thinking I am crazy. 

Lorna was like ‘ are you sure you know him?!’ I said of course I do, he is trying to be a funny fucker. His friend also seemed confused and was looking at me like I was some crazy bunny boiler. Thankfully, James gave it up and said ‘I am only joking, yes I remember you. Your brother picked you up outside the pub that night. I said ‘yes, that’s me!’ He had even taken my phone off me and was talking to my unimpressed tired brother waiting outside for me at 1am. 

Phew! I knew I wasn’t losing my mind and I was glad I didn’t need to prove that I was not imagining it anymore. So the four of us got to chatting. What do you know the Welsh guys had left! They had been replaced by men in Irish jerseys 😂 ouch. Well the chats and laughs were flowing nicely. James had a really good sense of humour and we were all having the craic. A few G&T’s here and pints there made for a good night. There were plenty of eye-catching, flirty glances being exchanged across the huddle of four we had created. The kind where you look away, look back, and suddenly you’re both pretending you weren’t looking at each other in the first place. 👀

It was getting late and Lorns had followed in 9pm me’s footsteps of the drink catching up to her.. although it was 1am so she had done a lot better than I had. I was almost man down at 9pm, saved by some fresh air and a glass of cold Coke Zero outside The Bath.We all agreed it was late and so we walked her out the front. I asked if she wanted me to go bring her home but she insisted she was fine, told me to have fun, be careful and ring her when I was downstairs and she would let me in. I was staying with her that night at her place in town. 

Then there were three, his friend was lovely and we lingered some more in the doorway. Getting a bit awkward as a threesome, the friend said “right, I am off, I will leave you guys to it. He had to be up early with two toddlers (very grateful right now for being childless, single and free!) 

So Mr. Ex Garda turned tech bro offered to walk me home. We walked for what seemed like an eternity, it was also absolutely freezing that night, my teeth chattered the whole way home. Not an oversized jacket offered in sight. Hmmm… observation number one. 

We chatted away and had a few smooches on the way home. Jesus I am mortified thinking back of the carry on. I prayed for a quiet night in Dublin with no crime so there would be no need for any CCTV footage to be recalled 🫣 Let’s just leave it there. 

The chats on the way home consisted of; him; ‘how long were you married?’ Me; ‘10 years’. Him; ‘do you have kids?’ Me; ‘no’. Him; ‘Do you want kids? Me; ‘yes’. 

Me to him; ‘do you have kids?’ him; ‘Yes’. Me: ‘Do you want more?’ him: ‘hell no’. Me to him: ‘Are you divorced?’ him; ‘not yet’. Him to me; ‘are you?’me: ‘No’. Him; ‘Where do you live?’ I told him where I lived and that I lived by myself which I was loving. When the question was returned he told me he still lived at home with his ex- wife and two kids. But assured me they slept in separate rooms. Observation number two. 

Then he proceeded to explain his situation. Which I frankly didn’t really care much for. It sounded messy and not my problem. He concluded this would be great, we could be friends with benefits and he could come over to mine as his place was obviously a non- runner. How kind of him. Whenever I wanted. Wow- he really knows how to treat a lady. He warned me not to fall in love with him though. Oh yes, he did! Observation and strike number three! 

For some reason, because I never want to be rude or offend anyone, we exchanged numbers. There was a bit of texting for a day or 2. I  was not ‘vibing’ off him as they say. I also found the fact that he had disappearing messages turned on a bit weird. And went in to amend the time of the disappearing message when we were texting. I asked about him and he said it was the default setting. Yeah ok. Shady.

So when he texted me the next day to say he had a lovely night blah, blah he also said ‘when am I getting the grand ‘tour’ of your new apartment 😉 naturally I felt a little ill and politely declined. 

But, the biggest vibe killer of all was not the fact that he was 10 years older than me and still lived with his ex-wife , it was that he unfortunately looked very like one of my bestie’s dads- who also happened to be a retired Garda. Once I saw that there was no unseeing it. 

And just like that, another one added to the WhatsApp archive folder which I have never been as acquainted with in my life.