I met Aoife on a wet Thursday in Rathmines, the kind of evening where the rain doesn’t fall so much as hang in the air and make everyone look a bit defeated. I was working behind the counter in a café near the Swan Centre, doing early shifts, writing poems on receipt paper, and telling myself I was only temporarily stuck. She came in with a broken umbrella and a laugh that made the whole place feel less grey. She asked for an oat flat white, then noticed the lines I had scribbled beside the till. “Are you a writer?” she asked. I said, “I’m trying to be.” She smiled as if I had said something brave.
That was the beginning of us. She studied law in Trinity, came from a family who used words like “trajectory” at dinner, and had a habit of planning things six months ahead. I lived in a box room in Portobello with damp in the corner and a bicycle that had been stolen twice and returned once. We should have made no sense, but at twenty-six I mistook admiration for intimacy. She loved hearing me talk about the book I wanted to write, the podcast I might start, the better job I was going to get once I sorted myself out. She’d sit across from me in Dublin pubs, chin in her hand, eyes bright, as if I was already someone impressive and only I hadn’t caught up yet.
At first, it felt like being believed in. Nobody had ever looked at me that way. My mother worried quietly. My friends slagged me gently. My managers asked if I could cover Sunday. But Aoife saw a future version of me wearing clean shirts, publishing essays, speaking on panels, maybe buying a little house somewhere with a fig tree in the garden. She called it “our life.” I called it love.
We spent evenings walking along the Grand Canal, making promises neither of us had earned yet. She brought me to Whelan’s to see bands I couldn’t name, and I brought her to the cheap Indian place near Camden Street where the naan was bigger than the plates. On weekends we’d wander through St Stephen’s Green, and she’d ask questions that sounded supportive until they didn’t. “Have you sent anything out this week?” “Did you apply for that communications role?” “Do you think the café is making you too comfortable?” I answered lightly at first. Then defensively. Then not at all.
The problem was, my life was not a montage. I was tired. I was anxious. I came home smelling of coffee and bleach. Sometimes I didn’t write because I had nothing in me after smiling at strangers for eight hours. Sometimes I wanted to sit on the floor eating toast and watching bad television. Aoife didn’t understand the ordinary heaviness of me. She was patient with my dream, but not with my actual days.
The incident that ended us happened in a restaurant off South William Street, on our second anniversary. She had booked it weeks in advance. I had spent most of the day trying to finish a short story for a competition, failed, and arrived late with rain in my hair and a cheap bunch of flowers from Centra. I could tell before I sat down that she was disappointed. Not angry, exactly. Worse. Tired of waiting for me to become the person she had invested in.
Halfway through dinner, she slid a printed job description across the table. It was for a graduate marketing role in a firm near Grand Canal Dock. The salary was more than I had ever earned. “I think you should apply,” she said. “It would give you structure. And confidence. And honestly, I think it’s time.”
I looked at the paper, then at her. There were candles on the table and couples around us leaning into each other, sharing chips, touching wrists. I should have said thank you. I should have seen the kindness in it. But something inside me finally named the ache I’d been carrying.
“Would you still love me if I stayed exactly as I am?” I asked.
She gave a little laugh, thinking I was being dramatic. Then she saw I wasn’t. Her face softened, and for a second I thought she might reach for my hand. Instead, she said, “But
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
