Dear Roe,
I recently moved back to Ireland. Everywhere I lived abroad, and previously in Ireland, I maintained open lines of communication with lovers, situationships and boyfriends, as I genuinely love them as people. In a ruthlessly pragmatic sense, it was also to ensure “insurance policies”, keeping them “warm” should I find myself back in that corner of Ireland or particular international setting.
My problem with being back home is I find the talent available never left Ireland for more than a holiday; accordingly, they are generally emotionally, sexually and romantically conservative in comparison to the string of lovers and boyfriends I have enjoyed abroad.
There is also an unfortunate lack of personal growth or professional ambition in this very small pool of men who date men. How do I rationalise this, or am I doomed to forever keep my insurance policies ticking over both here and abroad?
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I love someone who takes romance and connection seriously, who dates intentionally, who is on good terms with exes and situationships, so consider me all aboard for your desire to enjoy connections across the globe. As someone who has also lived abroad, I do find that Irish people can have quite a tortured and thus ineffectual relationship with dating and romance.
As a nation historically plagued by self-consciousness, shame and (despite our reputation as romantic storytellers) an inability to embrace the vulnerability and emotional openness required for deep connection, Irish people often aren’t great at the whole dating thing. Too often, Irish people see consciously looking for love as embarrassing, and so they refuse to put in effort, leaving dating profiles blank, not admitting to attraction or naming their intentions, not pursuing connections – and then we hand-wring and moan about how difficult it is to meet anyone these days.
Add in a culture also historically plagued by homophobia and shame around same-sex relationships, and that suppression or silencing of open desire can be even more acute for gay men. As a culture, we do need to get back to our wild romantic roots and re-embrace the idea of courtship, of seeking out love, of being true to our desire for connection.
So bravo on your conscious and intentional pursuit of connection.
However, amid the admiration for both your travels and cross-national relationship building (Have you considered some work in diplomatic relations? You are needed), I admit your language is making me raise my eyebrow. And possibly making my skin crawl a bit.
“Insurance policies.” “Talent.” “The string of [people] I have enjoyed.” “Unfortunate lack.” “Professional ambition.” It sounds like you’re a HR professional evaluating job candidates for a faceless corporation that is one step away from firing hundreds of people over Zoom only to replace them with AI.
You’re allowed have standards; of course you are. You’re allowed to want people who have similar values and life experience as you. You’re also allowed to enjoy as many connections as you like, as long as you and everyone involved is clear, consenting and respectful about whatever form of single fun or ethical non-monogamy you’re practising.
But I do wonder if the way you’re approaching connection is actually keeping you emotionally unavailable, making you appraise people with a “ruthlessly pragmatic” lens that’s focused on evaluating people based solely on how they can match your checklist and serve you, rather than trying to meet them as they are and forge an actual, reciprocal connection.
I’m not actually even sure what your question is, because you’re so busy evaluating and judging the men you’re discarding that you don’t say what you actually want. Are you looking for love? Monogamy? Do you want a serious relationship in Ireland? Does it have to be with an Irish person? Do you want someone to join you on your adventures, someone to come home to, or someone to entertain you in between jaunts?
You were so busy dismissing huge swathes of men with broad generalisations that you forgot to put your own emotional desires and vulnerabilities in your letter. You spent a lot of time explaining how no men in Ireland meet your standards, and no time at all expressing what you long for, what you crave, what you want to offer someone else, what kind of connection you want to build with another person.
Your letter is all checklists and criticisms but no expression of what you want, and so no room for someone else to meet you. There’s something there for you to consider, I think.
‘Never left for more than a holiday’ does not necessarily mean ‘incapable of growth’
Because the paradox of intimacy, authentic connection, love, is that it can’t flourish when you’re approaching people primarily as assessments. There’s a control to your approach, a desire to fit people into small boxes, both in terms of how you evaluate them and the room you’re offering them in your life. Connection and love, on the other hand, require a surrendering of that control. They require vulnerability, openness, genuine curiosity in the person in front of us, the acceptance of surprise, the risk of disappointment, the acceptance of otherness and difference.
Remaining in cold evaluation mode, comparing and ranking people, measuring their attributes, tallying their experiences against an invented scorecard, keeping people “warm” as insurance so you never have to face the vulnerability of either fully investing in someone or risk feeling alone – it all protects you from vulnerability, sure. But it also keeps out the possibility of someone surprising you.
[ Relationship experts on secrets to long-term loveOpens in new window ]
I don’t say this because I think you can’t enjoy various connections across continents – you can. But there’s a difference between maintaining connections that are all rich and meaningful and that you show up to fully and openheartedly, and treating people like they’re contingency plans, designed to keep your options open and preventing you from showing up emotionally to any of them.
I don’t think you need to abandon the values that are important to you. Ambition, emotional openness, sexual compatibility, curiosity about the world – these are all gorgeous things to value and want in a partner. But the way we narrate our search for love can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the narrative becomes “No one here is interesting enough for me”, then every encounter will begin from a place of quiet dismissal and contempt rather than curiosity – and contempt and dismissal are the sworn enemies of intimacy.
So start probing those narratives you’re treating as immutable fact, and seeing how much they’re not only dismissing other people, but limiting you.
Ireland is indeed a small ecosystem, particularly for queer people. Don’t make it needlessly smaller through assumptions. Plenty of people have travelled, or are not from here originally. But also remember that “never left for more than a holiday” does not necessarily mean “incapable of growth”, just as “well-travelled” does not automatically translate into emotional depth or relational maturity. Multiple passport stamps and rich inner lives are not the same thing. Professional ambition does not make someone a good partner.
[ ‘Fast sex, slow love’: How Irish relationships have changedOpens in new window ]
I’d urge you to switch up your questioning, moving away from “Are these men good enough for me?” Because if you want a connection at home, without the distraction and emotional safety of constant travel or the temporary honeymoon-type feeling of an overseas fling, you might have to abandon some of your protective defences. You might have to consider whether you are ready for the type of intimacy that grows in closeness, in the everyday, in the ordinary rhythms of a shared life. Maybe the question you need to consider is “What would it look like for me to genuinely open to being known here?”
Who knows? Learning to stand still with someone might be the most exciting journey of your life.
