I used to think falling for someone happened in grand, obvious ways. Music swelling, rain at the right moment, some clear sign that life had turned a corner. In reality, I fell for my boss over a lukewarm coffee on a delayed train from Dublin to Belfast, while he was trying to fix a broken presentation on his laptop and pretending not to panic.
His name was Ciarán, and he managed the small marketing team I had joined six months earlier near Grand Canal Dock. He was not the sort of man I expected to notice in that way. He wore the same navy jumper too often, kept meetings painfully practical, and had a habit of saying “let’s not make drama where there’s only admin.” I found him kind, but distant. Safe, maybe. The kind of boss who remembered if your mother was in hospital, but never asked in a way that made you feel exposed.
We were travelling to Belfast for a two-day client pitch, just the two of us because the rest of the team had either the flu, childcare, or better luck. I had spent the week rehearsing my section until the words followed me into sleep. At Connolly Station, I arrived too early, holding a folder like it was a shield. Ciarán appeared with two coffees, handed me one, and said, “You’ll be grand. And if you’re not, I’ll fake confidence for both of us.”
That was the first crack in how I saw him. Not because it was charming, though it was, but because he seemed nervous too. I had always imagined him as someone who carried certainty around like a passport. On the train, when his laptop froze and half our slides vanished, I expected him to snap or go quiet. Instead, he laughed once, rubbed his face, and said, “Right. We either fix it, or we give them the most expensive conversation of their lives.”
We spent the journey rebuilding the pitch between Drogheda and Newry, passing the laptop back and forth, drinking bad coffee, and making each other laugh at the worst possible time. By the time we reached Belfast, something had shifted. Not in a dramatic way. More like a curtain had been pulled slightly to one side, and I could see the person behind the job title.
The pitch itself went well, though I barely remember the client’s boardroom. I remember Ciarán looking at me when I started speaking, not with pressure, but with trust. I remember him stepping in only once, when someone asked a question designed to embarrass me, and saying calmly, “Aoife has already answered that in the strategy. It’s on page twelve, and it’s the reason this plan works.”
Afterwards, the client took us for dinner near the Cathedral Quarter. It should have been ordinary: plates passed around, polite laughter, people pretending not to check their phones. But when we finally left, the air was cold and bright, and Belfast had that late evening shine after rain. We walked without speaking for a minute. Then he said, “You were brilliant today.”
I made some joke because praise makes me awkward. He stopped outside a closed shopfront and said, “No, I mean it. I don’t say that lightly.”
That was the moment I knew I was in trouble. Not because I wanted anything to happen. I didn’t. He was my boss, and I was old enough to understand that feelings can be real and still be impossible. But my heart did something foolish anyway. It stepped forward before the rest of me could stop it.
Nothing happened in Belfast. That matters to me. We did not kiss in a hotel corridor or confess everything under fairy lights. We had one drink in a crowded bar, talked about our families, our failures, the versions of ourselves we had been trying to outgrow. He told me he had been engaged once and that it ended because he was better at being reliable than being honest. I told him I had spent years choosing men who needed rescuing because it made me feel useful. Then we said goodnight at the lift, both of us suddenly formal, both of us aware of a line neither wanted to cross.
Back in Dublin, the office felt different. He was careful with me, and I was careful with him. For three weeks, we behaved like adults and suffered quietly. I avoided staying late. He stopped making me tea when he made his own. We spoke mostly in calendar invites and project updates, which somehow felt
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
