#FirstDate #FirstDates #FirstDatesIRL #Dating #Cork #RebelCounty #VictorianQuarter #Ireland #LEGO
First Date #32 was with an American woman living in Cork. We matched on Bumble. She was attending University College Cork (UCC) as part of the Fulbright Program. She has a Masters from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, is a published author and her writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and ESPN the Magazine. So yeah, I have no idea why we matched, I guess she felt like slumming. 😂 Obviously, she was interesting in me because I am an American poet like herself (check out any of my 1600+ poems on https://stickpersonpoetry.com/spp/ if you’re a poetry fan).
Since I was hiring a car for my birthday weekend (see prior First Date), I suggested that we meet down in Cork. This was my first time visiting the “real capitol” of Ireland. 🙄 She suggested a few places before picking a restaurant in the Victorian Quarter. When I arrived at said establishment, they weren’t open. I waited for her to arrive and we walked up the street until we found a café. We ordered our drinks, and as we start exchanging vital dating information, we were interrupted by the Polish woman running the café. She was having a day, and she wanted us to know about it. As she was speaking very little English and neither of us knew Polish, we weren’t sure what was happening other than she was sobbing. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to excuse ourselves and leave as I felt my lack of sympathy would reflect poorly on my date. So, I asked what was going on. Through Polish and broken English, there was something going on with her son, his girlfriend/wife(?), a new baby, and their living situation which may or may not have been with the sobbing woman. As there wasn’t anything either of us could do, we quickly finished our drinks and left. Seemingly, the better choice according to my date would have been to leave as soon as the woman started rambling. 🤷♂️ We walked back to my car, and I drove her back to her place.
I knew that Cork was quite far from Kilkenny. I also knew she was going to be quite busy with studying that autumn. However, I immediately felt a connection with FirstDate32. Her being American and a poet helped. Her being a sports (especially baseball) fan helped too. She was a New Yorker, so her team was the Mets. At least a Mets fan was better than a Yankees fan.
(First Date – 6 September, 2019)
