A guide on how not to woo a woman

by Triona Melican (Ireland)

I didn't expect to find United Kingdom

I was eighteen. A naive eighteen at that. My world had been a cocoon of a small beef farm, Gaelic football with the local team and regular Sunday attendance at mass. Dinner was not considered dinner if there wasn’t a potato on the plate. I actively remember tasting my first morsel of pasta. A huge advocate of bland, tasteless food I was its number one fan straight away and refused to ruin its original taste by adding sauce until I was twenty three. If the world was an ocean, I had marooned myself on an island, and heading to London was my feeble attempt to finally dip my toe into the edge of its waters. Thus far my biggest exposure to other cultures was my cousin responding “Uncle Bens” when asked what rice he would like at a Chinese restaurant. (Apparently we had yet to comprehend the agonising decision between boiled and egg-fried rice.) So heading to a city with a population double the size of my country, with over three hundred languages spoken and two hundred and seventy nationalities living together in one smog induced rat race - what could possibly go wrong? Turns out everything yet nothing. While there was no doubt it was exciting it was also intimidating. My senses were assaulted with an overload. My innocent ignorance was eradicated with every turn of a corner. It was finally diminished on our second night in the city. We decided to go to a nightclub in the city centre. While there, a man set his sights on me and apparently decided that I would be his. When I politely declined his advances through blatant ignoring, he still persisted. I turned to him and said “Tá brón orm níl aon Bearla agam.” I called on my beautiful native language to save me. It didn’t. Neither did the bouncer when he was ushered over and a complaint was made. This, we were informed, was a regular occurrence but Daddy owned the club so there was little security could do. His advances did not stop. Neither did the knot twisting in my stomach. The last sentence he said to me, as he looked me square in the eye, was “In my country, you women are the shit beneath my shoe.” It was the first time I realised the consequence of having a vagina on this planet earth. It was also the worst attempt to woo a woman I had ever heard. I fought hard to dislodge the rock in my throat and watery eyes threatening to give me away. Nobody liked a killjoy on holidays. We promptly left the nightclub and rounded the corner to the buzzing hive that is Leicester Square. A small crowd had gathered around a Rastafarian drummer. His matted dreadlocks stiffly swayed to the rhythm of his smooth hands. I huddled with my girls against the crisp London air that was as refreshing as it was unforgiving. Our showman was belting out Bob Marley’s classic ‘Three Little Birds’. “Singing don’t worry about a thing cause every little thing gonna be alright.” I returned his wide, toothless grin with my Irish smiling eyes. He wasn’t wrong.