20 September 2008: Clifden, Ireland

Well, this was quite a day.

I woke up at 8:30 but lay in bed until noon, at which point I had tea and toast with Aisling in the back yard. And here is where it begins.

Unknowingly and unwittingly, I walked right into a We Need To Talk talk. You read that right, we had a We Need To Talk talk on the morning after we met. And it all began with a compliment.

I complimented her about something, I couldn't even begin to tell you what, and she asked "do you mean that seriously?" Red flag, red flag.

Let's think about this for a second. It doesn't take a genius to realize you avoid this question on the morning after you've met. There's absolutely nothing you can gain from answering this question in the first 24 hours that you couldn't gain 24 hours later, when you actually know something about the person and have an idea of where this conversation might end up going.

So is there something to lose from answering this question in the first 24 hours? Well, let's see. Because I did answer it. In fact, I went deep.

And this particular We Need To Talk talk came in four phases.


Phase One: THE PLAY

You could call this "the line" if you want, but I think it's more of the play, because she served me up a fat one and I took a swing. A huge swing.

In response to her inquiring if I was serious about the compliment, I said "I think you're the prettiest girl in Ireland but I don't have any foolish ideas about a wanderer coming in here and being with you." I mean, it was a pretty good play, to be perfectly honest.

*****

Phase Two: THE FEED

Her response to that was along the lines of "Do you ever want to just be close friends with someone but also be with that person?" Boy, if that's not a feed, I don't know what is.

Actually, I do know what is. It's when the next thing is simply "I could tell last night it wasn't just a friend thing. You can't hold anything back" and when the thing after that is "I don't want to half-ass anything."

Lord almighty, that was a feed. And I took the bait. "I mean, I'm willing to try."

*****

Phase Three: THE RUG MOMENT

That's a term I just made up, but it's perfect for this situation. It's when someone pulls the rug out from under you, but they pull it so hard and so fast that it's literally a moment unto itself. Not just a thing that happened.

"I just don't think I'm into it that way. I don't want to lead you on, but you're a great person."

This was one of the all-time rug moments. And it only got better.

"You can stay here tonight, but after tomorrow I'm going to Limerick. Are you going to be OK?"

Jesus, how about a little dignity?

"I'm sure you'll find someone in your travels who loves you."

WOW! Really, there?

*****

Phase Four: AAAAAAWKWARD

"I feel so guilty, I just didn't mean for you to feel this way because I gave you a ride."

At this point I really didn't know what to say.


So that was that. The trajectory of this We Need To Talk talk was even more bizarre than the way in which I ended up back at her house in the first place. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't really sure what we had even said, other than that ain't nothing was happening. I guess it was good to know that, as it probably would have come out eventually. Albeit maybe a bit more tactfully.

Anyway, I was a bit shocked by the whole thing and was, I suppose, speechless, and probably to break the silence more than anything else Aisling suggested we drive up to Clifden for the day. Sounds like a plan.

Clifden is a town on the coast about 45 minutes away from Moycullen, and is really a lovely place. Pretty beautiful to walk around and with a nice downtown, where they were in the middle of a week of live music.

After a while we drove to the coast because it was a beautiful day for exploring, and sat outside basking in the glory of the afternoon and doing little else. There was a dude sitting in a van and looking at a map, so I figured he was traveling and went to talk to him.

This dude was a German named Kolja who had driven from Germany and was in the middle of a months-long exploration of Ireland. We talked for a bit and then Aisling came over and joined us. Kolja offered me a beer and just like that we were fast friends. And fast traveling buddies.

I was thinking about going out to Westport the next day and so I asked Kolja if he was heading that way. He said he would be leaving in a couple days, but since I wanted to head out before then it wouldn't work. Still, though, he was staying in Clifden for the night, which meant that if I stuck around too I'd have a head start on my way to Westport in the morning.

Aisling had the idea first about us sticking around for the night, which is where I got the idea about leaving from there in the morning, but she was backing out pretty quickly. I was almost definitely going to stay in Clifden for the night regardless of what Aisling was doing, but it certainly would have been nicer to have her hanging out too. And eventually I convinced her to stick around.

We went up to the City Centre and drank some beer on the main square and had some chips and, truth be told, I was still crazy about Aisling. I don't mean to beat a dead horse-- although an incredibly attractive dead horse-- but let's just say that, considering the talk that morning, it was all pretty worthless.

Eventually we went into a pub, which was pretty lame, and then another one which was better. We sat down and, since I had a beer in my hand and was listening to music, felt like it was an opportune time to write in my notebook about the morning. Since I hadn't by that point.

Aisling asked me what I was writing, and I told her it was about the day so far. She asked if she could read it, which didn't seem to me like a good idea let alone against the very principal of having a travel notebook, but she asked a couple more times and, well, it wasn't like I had written anything too important.

So I told her to read the last three lines I had written, which were "good to know, I guess --> just means Aisling will be a beautiful friend instead of a beautiful more-than-friend --> would rather not lose her as friend". Pretty harmless, I thought, not to mention what a stud move.

But she looked at the page for quite some time and handed it back to me and, when I asked her, she said she read the whole page. Which included such bits as "wow, can I save any dignity yet?" Maybe not quite as good as the other part.

Regardless, though, I went back to writing since there was a lot I didn't want to forget-- although, to be honest, I suppose I forgot a lot. She told me I "need to stop writing," and looked pretty pissed off. Ironic, maybe, because it had been she who asked to read what I wrote.

She then said such things as "I gave you a ride, I shouldn't have to feel guilty." This was sort of a continuation of the rug moment, seeing as I hadn't asked for a ride at all but she had offered. The whole thing was really pretty terrible; I mean, it was over. Whatever point it was at after the We Need To Talk talk, it was over.

What's also interesting, I guess, is that if we had just gone back to Moycullen it would have been fine, and nothing at all would have happened. It's just that since we stayed and were drinking I was liable to tell her "I'm crazy about you" a lot. I mean a lot. And that made her feel more guilty, and that made it even more uncomfortable. It was a disaster.

After some time we went back to the van and Aisling started fiddling. The girl is a lovely fiddler, I mean that, but at this point it was literally impossible for me to keep my eyes open. So I closed them. And, of course, I fell asleep. I mean, really, if there was any one way for me to seal the deal on this one, it was to fall asleep while she was fiddling. Not so much because I fell asleep during her fiddling, but because she and Kolja stayed up talking for a couple hours while I was fast asleep. These things happen.

Anyway, I woke up a bit later, and Aisling went to sleep in her car while Kolja and I pulled out the futon in the van.

And that, my friends, was it.

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Four things about the Aisling Roller-Coaster, of which the third and fourth are most important:

1) This whole thing started because I happened to ask her for directions. That's it. Not because I thought she was cute or because I needed a place to crash and thought I'd ask her. Because I asked her for directions. Insane.

2) In 48 hours with this girl, we had had the Car Decision, the We Need To Talk Talk, and the Clifden Cliff-Dive. The first took us from giving directions to taking me home in about 45 minutes. The second took us from a possible romantic play to an end of discussion in about 30 minutes. And the third took us from still lovely friends to nice to know ya in, well, the course of the early evening. Unbelievable. I'm still dizzy.

3) It may have gotten lost in the sob story, but I hope you caught that Aisling and I went to Clifden for a day trip and ended up spending the night with someone random. "Spending the night with someone random" isn't exactly a news flash for this trip, but we were a German, a Yank, and an Irish fiddler, hanging out at the bar, and then going to sleep in a camoflauge VW van. I doubt I'll spend another night in a van for the rest of my time in Europe, you know, because the situation doesn't usually arise. I could have gone on and on about this part of the day, because of how epic the German, the Yank, and the Irish fiddler was, but I thought the other part of the day was more interesting. No, definitely not more interesting, but there will epic adventures galore while I'm over here, while this was the first true sob story yet. I felt like it needed to be gone into.

4) Here's the main thing. When it comes to this kind of traveling, for 95% of the situations you find yourself, the way I'm doing it is enough. The Brazilian girl in the hostel, the Spanish girl in the hostel, basically anything in a hostel-- one day is perfect, two days is fine, and three days is pushing it. It's just about backpackers looking for backpacking thrills, and that's it. But for the other 5%-- Scarlet Johanson, Aisling, the real Keira Knightly-- three days isn't enough, and a week really isn't even enough either. Something just clicks, and that's sort of when you want to stick around longer than you can. Or longer than you should. Not that it mattered here.

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And, I promise, no more posts like this one. For my health and yours.