I tell Sorcha I’m going out. It’s, like, Paddy’s weekend. Ireland are playing Italy in Rome tomorrow and Oisinn and JP are keen to hear my analysis as to where Ireland go from here over a few scoops.
She looks at me like I've just said the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“But I’ve ordered an Indian,” she goes.
I don’t comment on that either way. I’m just there, “This is kind of important, Babes. The big question is would I be prepared to see Joe Schmidt replace Declan Kidney and lose whatever he brings to Leinster?”
She goes, “Ross, you have three newborn babies.”
I'm like, "Er, they're asleep?"
“What I mean is, you can’t keep up this bachelor lifestyle forever.”
It’s crazy talk. It’s possibly post-natal. I don’t make a big deal of it, though – it’s obvious the girl is not in her right mind.
I’m there, “Sorcha, it’s very much a crossroads moment for Irish rugby. The goys very much rely on my anlaysis.”
She’s like, “Go on then. I’ll save you some chicken dhansk.”
I grab an old Jo and I head for town – a man with a definite plan. I’m not meeting the goys at all. You possibly guessed that.
It ended up being pretty easy to join Tinder. All you really need is, like, a Facebook account. So I set up obviously a fake one under the name of Richie McCaw – hilarious!
For my actual profile pic, I took off my shirt, flexed my abs – actually, I didn't need to flex them, because they're as tight as wet jeans at the moment – and I took a few selfies of just my abdominal area. I downloaded the Tinder app, then literally sixty seconds later, I was part of the GPS, non-committal sex revolution.
The taxi drops me off in town. And suddenly I’m standing on Grafton Street and I’m thinking, okay, let’s see how good this supposed app is.
I hit the button and literally nothing happens for the first, like, sixty seconds. Then my phone all of a sudden storts throwing me pictures of birds in the immediate vicinity who like what they see and want a piece.
Unfortunately, most of them end up being not great. You’d have to admire their optimism, though. I quickly swipe my through them. It’s, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, whoa!
She's nice.
Ursula McKeever. I check through her other photos. She might have just been having a good day. That can happen. But no, she’s actually nice. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say she looks like Roxanne Pallett.
I say yes please and she obviously does, too, because my phone tells me I've made a match. It asks me if I want to, like, message her now?
I’m thinking, yeah, no, why not?
So I do.
It turns out she's drinking in Bruxelles, which happens to be one of my favourite pubs that isn't called Kielys of Donnybrook. So I tell her I'm very much nearby and yeah, no, maybe I'll pop in and see her?
I wander around there, thinking to myself, this is it – Tinder is the reason we put satellites in space.
I head for Bruxelles and in I go. The place is rammers – like I said, it’s Paddy’s weekend – but I spot Ursula straight away. She’s in a little huddle with, like, two or three friends and they’re all looking at her phone and sort of, like, giggling – obviously wondering am I an Abercrombie & Fitch model or something – then looking around them, obviously wondering who, in this sweating mosh pit of humanity, it might be.
I check out the goods from, like, ten feet away and I'm happy with what I see. If anything, her photograph doesn't do her justice?
I walk up to her and I go, “Hey,” laying on the chorm pretty thick.
She's instantly embarrassed. This is obviously her first time on Tinder as well?
But her embarrassment is nothing compared to my surprise when she opens that beautiful little mouth of hers and the thickest country accent I've ever heard comes out.
She there's, "By my oath, I don't believe it! Are you Richie McCaw?"
I actually take a couple of steps backwards and stare at her, just blinking.
A complete and utter lasher with the a voice like Peig Seyers.
I’m like, “Yeah, no, I’m Richie McCaw,” still holding back a little.
"I'm saw embirissed," she goes. "We were pleein with the epp on my phawn and Nuala here saw the picture of you with your six-peck . . ."
I'm there, "It's actually an eight-pack?"
"And she hit the button. I tried to cencel it – by my baptism, I did – but I didn't knaw hoe. I'm saw sorry to have wasted your time, Sir."
Now, I should mention that my impression of country birds was once probably much the same as yours. You go beyond Naas and it’s all women in shawls and men’s shoes dreaming of moving to Dublin to work in the VHI. But this Ursula bird is proof that things are definitely changing.
A lot of it is down to improved diet.
“Well, since I’m here,” I go, “why don’t I buy you a drink?”
I can’t describe the delight in her face. It’s like she’s just stepped out of Busarus and she’s seeing two-storey buildings for the first time.
“I’ll have a pint of Bulmers,” she goes.
I can do better than that – and I do! I buy them each a pint of Bulmers – her and her three mucker mates. That's what an operator I am. And it's not long before Ursula's – I don't know if you want to call them –inhibitions stort to melt away?
She's telling me about Malachy, her ex, who told her he loved her, but it turned out that he didn't, not
Then she’s telling me about leaving her home in Galway to move to Dublin to work in the claims deportment of the V.H.I. – see, I knew it! – and I rub the top of her orm in a sympathetic way when she tells me she has a big family and she sometimes misses them.
I even laugh along when she mocks me about Dublin's prospects in this year's All Ireland – "Doneal are the men will knock smoke out of you!" – like I care one way or the other?
The friends are all impressed by me – I’m putting on a bit of a show, in fairness to me – and after a couple of hours, when Copperface Jacks gets inevitably mentioned, the birds enter into a little huddle. Ursula knows that to bring someone with my looks into Coppers is to risk losing me inside the first ten minutes.
But at the same time, she’s having doubts, because I hear one of her friends tell her to hold her whisht, wouldn’t she be a fool to think that Malachy isn’t out doing the self same thing this very night – “it’s not keening for you, he’ll be, the dirty slattern – and let him chew on this for fear he’d be hungry” – and isn’t she entitled to a bit of fun with a fella who seems to be very genuine and the vein of poetry coming out of his very mouth?
Okay, there’s a chance I”m possibly exaggerating the accent. But, seriously, you’d wonder how these four ever found their way across the Shannon.
After a few minutes of consultation, Ursula turns around to me and goes, “I’m ectually tired. I might hid beck. Do you want to come with me? For a coffee?”
Malachy has been totally forgotten. When you score someone just to get over an ex, it’s called a Sexorcism.
I’m like, “Yeah, no, just a quick coffee and then I’ll be on my way,” letting her know that my time is valuable. “I have to be up early in the morning.”
She lives in Rathmines. A lot of them do. When we get into her gaff – it's, like, a flat more than an aportment – she insists on going through the unnecessary foreplay of actually making coffee, while I stort giving her little compliments about her hair and her body, again to keep her mind focused on the direction this evening is headed.
She's suddenly having doubts, though. While we're kissing in the kitchen, she keeps going, "This is rendom. It's, like, saw rendom."
And I’m going, “For me, Ursula, there are times for questioning yourself and there are times when you should just, I don’t know, go with the moment – feelings and blah, blah, blah.”
It doesn’t put her mind at ease, though. She suddenly puts her hand on my chest and pushes me away, going, “Naw, it’s too soon.”
I’m there, “Too soon?”
“After Malachy.”
Malachy. I”d deck him if he was here.
I’m like, “Another way of looking at it is that a handy way of getting over someone is to sleep with someone else. We’ll have to be quick, though, because I’ve got to be up early in the morning.”
“By my oath, I would like nothing more,” she goes. “And you make very fine words. But I don’t knaw you whill enough yit.”
“I can’t think of a better way to get to know someone than to sleep with them.”
I’ve got the gift of the gab – there’s no doubt about that.
“Naw,” she goes. “I’d put a lie on my soul if I said I wasn’t sorry, for I wasted your time this night.”
I roll my eyes.
I’m there, “Yeah, no, you did,” grabbing my jacket. “Tinder – the app that’s supposed to take the hassle out of dating? I might as well have stayed home with my wife and kids!”
Seedless in Seattle is published by Penguin Ireland
