Relationship Advice

I had a friend who had a problem.

We were both in our early twenties; he was a good Derry boy from a good Catholic family, and he was handsome and witty, and bright.

Sort of.

His problem was that he couldn’t get a girl to save his life.

We all found this to be a source of great amusement; he was absolutely clueless to the fact that women were attracted to him, which allowed the rest of us to get more positive attention.

However, one night an incident occurred which made me realise that an intervention was in order.

We were in a pub when two American girls, both very attractive, sat down at our table, right next to my friend.

All of us were trying to make eye contact with him, and whenever we did we’d look over at the girls with a little jerk of our heads as if to say “Go for it!”

He just kept nodding his head.

The young woman sitting closest to him “accidentally” spilled her drink in his lap, went about trying to mop it up with a towel, apologised, and offered to buy him a drink.

“Don’t worry, love. It was your drink. I’ll buy you another.”

Not only did this idiot fail to recognise what she was after, he forgot to buy her a drink.

Needless to say, she soon became angry and left with her friend.

I was embarrassed for my friend, but I didn’t say anything that night.

The next morning, he said, “Are ye up for a jar?”

“Yeah. But first, we need to have a chat.”

He got a concerned look on his face. “About what?”

“That American girl last night? The one who spilled her drink on your lap and then had her hands all over you trying to clean it up? She was after you. What is the problem?”

He pulled a redder, put his face in his hands, and said;

“I. Can. Just. Never. Tell. When. They’re. Interested.”

Just like that. I was glad that he was covering his face, because by that point, I was covering my mouth so he wouldn’t hear me laughing. When I composed myself, I asked him if he liked women. He thought I was questioning his sexual orientation and became defensive.

“You’ve got me wrong. Look. Do you love your mother?”

“Yes, I love my mother, you—”

“Shut it. Do you love your sisters?”

“Yes!”

“Alright. That Protestant girl that you did the ‘Peace People’ thing with? She was a looker. Did you try?”

“No! It wasn’t like that! We were just friends!”

“That’s what I’m getting at. You like women; they can tell; and that’s why they like you.”

(I couldn’t tell him that it was also because he was handsome; that would have been awkward.)

I could see the light bulb go on in his head; and thus the true Hound of Ulster was born.

After that, he went on a bit of a rampage.

Not only did he get his fair share of play, he got at least half of mine.

Killian, you magnificent bastard! You read my book!

Ah, well; it was my own fault; no good deed goes unpunished.

Just one example of why you should never give relationship advice.