I met him on a Tuesday evening in a queue outside Grogan’s, both of us pretending we weren’t cold. It was one of those Dublin evenings where the rain doesn’t fall so much as hang in the air, soft and persistent, making everyone’s hair look more honest. He was behind me, holding a book under his jacket, and when the man in front of us complained about the weather, he said, “At least it gives the city a personality.” I laughed before I meant to.
His name was Eoin. He was a secondary school science teacher from Drumcondra, the kind of person who listened with his whole face. I was working in a pharmacy near Dawson Street and studying part-time, mostly to convince myself my life was moving somewhere. We ended up sharing a small table near the window because the place was packed, and by the time our toasties arrived, we were talking like people who had missed each other for years without knowing it.
There was chemistry, and I don’t mean the dramatic kind where everything burns down. It was quieter than that. He noticed when I went still before answering a personal question. I noticed he stirred his tea long after the sugar had dissolved. We could make each other laugh without performing. When we walked through St Stephen’s Green after closing time, the paths shining under the lamps, he told me his mother used to bring him there to feed the ducks, and I told him I used to come there on my lunch break just to sit beside strangers and feel less alone.
For six weeks, we built a little world in stolen evenings. We met after work for coffee near Trinity, wandered down to the Grand Canal with takeaway chips, took the DART to Howth one bright Saturday and got sunburned on our noses like teenagers. He carried plasters in his wallet because he said new shoes were “an optimism tax.” I kept one of them in my coat pocket for months.
The problem was that neither of us had arrived at that world empty-handed. I had just come out of a long relationship with a man everyone thought I would marry. There was no scandal, no great betrayal, just the slow sadness of two people becoming polite housemates. I was proud of leaving, but also hollow from it. I didn’t yet know who I was when I wasn’t trying to be easy to love.
Eoin, meanwhile, was waiting for a job offer in Galway. He had applied before we met, back when Dublin felt too expensive and too crowded and too full of memories from his own past. When he told me, we were sitting on the steps outside the National Gallery, sharing a paper cup of coffee because the café had closed. He said it gently, like he was placing something breakable between us.
“It’s not definite,” he said.
But it was. We both knew it was.
After that, our time together changed shape. Every lovely thing had a shadow attached. A pint in The Long Hall felt like a goodbye rehearsal. A walk along the Liffey felt like we were trying to memorise the same scene from different sides. We never fought, which somehow made it worse. There was nothing to push against, no villain to blame. Just timing, that dull and ordinary thief.
The night before he left, he came to my flat in Portobello with a bag of groceries and cooked pasta badly. The sauce was too salty and the garlic was nearly raw, and we ate it anyway, sitting on the floor because I still hadn’t bought a proper table. We talked about trying long distance. We talked about weekend trains and school holidays and finding a way. Then we stopped pretending.
I remember he said, “I don’t want to become another thing you’re trying to survive.”
That sentence hurt because it was kind. I was still grieving a life I had chosen to leave. He was trying to begin one he had worked hard to reach. If we held on too tightly, we would turn something beautiful into pressure. We would start counting who called more, who travelled more, who sacrificed
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
