I first saw him on a wet Tuesday morning outside Dublin Connolly, standing under the station clock with a paper cup of coffee and a book held open against the rain. Everyone else was rushing, shoulders up, faces shut, but he was still. He looked up from the page and smiled at something only he had read, and for reasons I still can’t fully defend, I carried that smile with me all the way to my office on Abbey Street.
After that, I started noticing him everywhere. Not in a dramatic way, not like fate was throwing violins across the street. Just small, ordinary sightings. He got the Luas at the same time as me some mornings. He bought a breakfast roll from the Centra near Tara Street. Once, I saw him reading by the window in Bewley’s on Grafton Street while rain ran down the glass like melted silver. He always wore the same navy coat with one missing button. He had a habit of tapping his thumb against the spine of whatever book he was reading, as if keeping time with a song no one else could hear.
I never spoke to him. That is the ridiculous and honest truth of it. I built a whole affection out of glances and timing. I knew he preferred black coffee, that he frowned when his phone rang, that he gave money to the busker outside Trinity College even when he only had coins. I did not know his name. He did not know mine. Still, on mornings when the city felt grey and sharp-edged, seeing him made it softer.
At the time, I was twenty-nine and lonely in a way I was ashamed to admit. My friends were coupling off, buying small houses in places I had to Google, sending photos of babies wrapped like tiny burritos. I lived alone in a flat in Phibsborough where the window never fully closed, and I told everyone I loved my independence. Some evenings I did. Other evenings I ate toast for dinner and listened to the neighbours laughing through the wall, and my independence felt like a coat I had outgrown but kept wearing because it was mine.
He became a private comfort. I gave him stories. In my head, he was a teacher, or maybe an illustrator, or a man who had moved back home to mind a sick parent. I imagined he was kind because he looked kind. I imagined he would understand the parts of me I could never explain properly. The frightening thing about loving someone from a distance is that they can never disappoint you. They can also never choose you.
One evening in November, I saw him in The Long Hall on South Great George’s Street. I had gone in with a woman from work after a long day of pretending spreadsheets mattered. The pub was golden and noisy, all mirrors and red lamps and wet coats steaming near the door. He was at the bar with two friends, laughing properly, head tipped back. My heart did that childish leap I hated and loved.
My colleague nudged me and asked if I knew him because I had gone quiet. I said no, too quickly. Then, perhaps because the room was warm and I had had half a pint, I decided that this was it. This was the moment I would walk over and say something simple. “I see you on the Luas sometimes.” “What are you reading?” “Hi.” Anything. I stood up, rehearsing a smile I hoped looked natural.
Before I took a step, a woman came through the door in a green scarf. He saw her and changed. Not loudly, not theatrically. His whole face just opened. He crossed the pub in two strides and pulled her into him, and she held his face between her hands as if he was something precious she had nearly lost. They kissed, and it was not a new kiss. It was a familiar one, full of history and groceries and arguments and forgiveness.
I sat back down so quickly my chair knocked the table. My colleague asked if I was alright. I said yes, because nothing had happened to me, not really. A man I didn’t know kissed a woman I didn’t know in a pub that belonged to neither of us. That was all. But I went home that night feeling as if I had been gently but firmly returned to myself.
For a few days, I felt foolish. I was embarrassed by the tenderness I had spent on a stranger. Then, slowly, the embarrassment shifted into something else. I realised I had not truly loved him. I had loved the possibility he represented: that someone might look up from the noise of the city and see me, really see me, without me having to perform being fine.
The last time I saw him was in spring, near the Ha’penny Bridge. He was walking beside the woman in the green scarf, carrying a bunch of daffodils badly wrapped in brown paper. He passed within a metre of me. For one second I thought he might
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
