men always do
and i wish they wouldn't.
A man walks up to me and asks me where I’m from. It’s a rainy day in north Dublin, not a heavy rain, but a steady grey mist. I’m sat in the back of a bar me and my boyfriend frequent, it’s quiet, cosy and full of characters. Not performative and the perfect place to kill time until he finishes work in the city.
I reply ‘Down’. Bluntly, and with that fake smile women do when we really aren’t interested and wish to be left alone.
'“DOWN???” He didn’t expect that.
“I thought you were French?” He exclaims.
Would it matter if i was? I wonder.
That’s the thing when men approach, you’re always trying to find and assess the immediate warning signs, the intermittent flashing red & green lights. Stop or go. Stay or leave. Fight or flight.
The mans father (Paul, apparently) shouts over to get the verdict that they had been clearly discussing for some time. You can always tell when men are about to approach. They think they’re so coy. It’s loathsome really. Sean shouts back that I’m from County Down, his arms in the air, animated and filled with disbelief. '“DOWN!?” Paul slaps his knee so hard that his beer stool wobbles. “Down?” he repeats it as if it’s not possible that someone from the rural north could look like me.
“I thought you were Italian.” he says with shrugged shoulders staring deep into the abyss of his 4pm pint of Tennents. I smile politely and tell them i’ll take the compliment, offering the remark that it’s probably the dark hair.
Sean grabs the reigns of conversation once again. He continues to ask me about my tattoo’s. They always do.
I don’t show him any, but my tatted hands betray me.
Paul asks me if Sean is bothering me, and the question catches me off guard because he obviously is, and yet he hasn’t said or done anything up until this point that crosses the line. It’s the kind of question men ask not because they care, but to absolve themselves of any true guilt. Sean shoots his stooped father a bitter glance, annoyed at the very suggestion that he would be annoying the nice tattooed French lady from Down.
Before I have the chance to reply to Paul’s pressing question of my annoyance, Sean charges ahead to tell me that, I’m “really very pretty”. I ignore the statement and tell him that I’m waiting to meet my boyfriend once he gets off of work.
“BOYFRIEND!?” Sean cries, throwing his arms in the air then clutching his chest, stumbling backward, imitating being shot. I wish I had a gun.
“Well he’s a lucky man.” Sean announces to the almost empty beer garden.
“Lucky man”, Paul solemnly chimes from the back.
Sean leaves to finish his pint. I take a deep breath and return to my book and my Guinness, wanting to eat my buffalo flavoured crips and wipe the crumbs off on my faux fur coat in peace.
[ 5 minutes later ]
Sean returns, and walks towards me in the kind of way you do if you want to establish a bond with a wild animal. That creepy and unsettling side step that men do when they wish to approach the bench. I do everything to stop myself from rolling my eyes.
At least approach me with some backbone.
He says something to me before I’ve even had the chance to remove my headphones and I didn’t quite catch it. “pardon?”
Paul bites his lip for a moment and says, how many piercings do you have?
There it is, the cardinal offence. Men don’t care about your piercings. They care about two very specific piercings. My face drops as I know exactly where this conversation is leading.
‘Ten.” I answer, blunty, rearranging my makeshift beer garden desk to seem busy and disinterested.
Sean shifts on the spot, giggles and covers his face, “no no, I can’t, I’m being bad, I want to ask you something..” He stammers. We all know what that something is.
Part of me wants to challenge him. SAY IT. Say whats on your perverted mind you disgusting freak. The other half just looks for bar staff and the nearest exit.
He looks me square in the eye, mouth open, motioning his hand across his chest, “and you don’t have them, anywhere - else?”
-and there it is.
Men always do.