The Personals. Brian O’Connell

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The Personals - Brian O’Connell


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I was part of an elaborate scam to fiddle them out of their item for sale, while others, particularly those recently bereaved, were very happy to sit and talk about their life experiences.

      I’m very grateful to everyone who shared their stories and let me into their homes, or met me in hotels, cafes or parked cars, or took a phone call and spilled their heart out and shared with me intimate details of their life. There was really nothing in it for them; by the time this book is published most of their ads will have long since expired, so it was hugely refreshing to be able to talk to people simply because they wanted to share some of their story with me.

      While the ad is a signpost, it’s ultimately the people who drew me in, and the adage that everyone has a story. The privilege for me is in contacting a stranger and shortly afterwards sharing some of the more intimate moments of their life, with no agenda or preconditions. Throughout this process the joy was in finding unexpected twists and turns, lessons learned and the life experiences gained, all trapped iceberg-like beneath a few lines of classified text on a page or screen. Those kinds of discoveries are what brought me back again and again to these stories.

      Some people do Sudoku, others binge on box sets; I trawl the classified ads ...

       LOVE AND LOSS

      Beautiful wedding and engagement ring for sale. €3,000 or nearest offer. DoneDeal, June 2018

      Weeds are growing up through the barriers at the edge of the estate I’m driving through, as Google Maps and I have one of our many disagreements and I circle round at least half a dozen times.

      The gravel-filled fields beyond those barriers were once called ‘Phase 2’ on a glossy Celtic Tiger era brochure, probably launched in a penthouse with a rugby player and canapés. Now the scabby site adjacent remains a stubborn scar on the landscape, a reminder that we lost control and that this estate was over-hyped and over-extended until the building came to an abrupt end.

      She is a fortysomething woman, and in her sitting room there are clues that she is well travelled – an African mask here, an Asian figurine there. I’m not sure that it’s a house that has seen many four a.m. Christy Moore singalongs; everything seems particularly placed, and because we meet just as she’s come in from work, I assume that the house always looks this gleaming and wasn’t scrubbed for my sake. I also guess that no small children live here – the lighted candles and open bowls of potpourri give this away.

      By way of easing into the story, I ask her to describe the rings to me, which saves me the embarrassment of discussing something I know zilch about. ‘The engagement ring is a solitaire ring and it has encrusted diamonds halfway on each shoulder,’ she explains, thinking about, and then resisting the urge, to put it on her finger. ‘The wedding ring would have the same type of encrusted diamonds. So, this is a band of diamonds and they have the same set on the side. They are stunning rings. I think in total it’s one carat. I initially picked the diamonds and I got them in Dubai and the company that were making them for me called me up to say they had sourced a nicer-quality diamond, and they were looking for permission to put it in. So, it was crafted with great care and consideration and there’s no inscription on them.’

      The rings, the box, the inlay cards and the lack of inscription all make it look as if they’ve just come off the shelf from a high-street jeweller. Have they ever actually been on her finger, I ask? ‘Yes, they went on my finger in December 2015 and they came off in September 2017. So just under two years. Do you want to know the story?’

Illustration of an engagement ring with a single diamond and a wedding band, intertwined.

      And for the first time the nerves are gone and she’s smiling as she recounts their early courtship. Had she any hesitation at the time, I ask? ‘In my naivety, no,’ she says. ‘I had considered motivations briefly; why he would ask someone to marry so quickly, but I would have thought maybe he loved me. I didn’t really question that. I should have.’

      After they married, she returned home in late 2015, and after Christmas that year applied for his spousal visa so he could come to Ireland. This application turned into a lengthy and intrusive process during which their relationship needed to be verified, requiring testimony from family and friends that it was a legitimate marriage.

      All her family were happy to give their testimony, and all were convinced this relationship was for real. In total, the process cost €4,000. This should have been the starting point for a wonderful life together in Ireland. Instead, it became the point at which their short marriage came unstuck and she felt the gaze of partnered society even more acutely. ‘His visa was refused in August 2017,’ she says. ‘And the day after I told him it had been refused, he told me he was marrying someone else. Just like that.’

      It’s a difficult question, but I ask her whether she thinks his second marriage was prompted by the visa refusal. After a long pause,


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