The Irish Snug

I fell in love at the Irish Snug once. I was at the tail end of another relationship, so perhaps I should have been better or different or more resistant to the idea of falling in love with another person, but I was being left and I think I wanted desperately for the feelings I had for the person leaving me to manifest in someone else before the final nail hit the coffin of my old relationship.

It was unrequited, which was fitting for the Irish Snug–a place that I always wanted to be better than it was. I liked the shepherd’s pie on a cold day and the beers seemed reasonably priced. The problem was finding anyone willing to give you these things. More than once I asked a bartender if I should order at the bar only to be told that there was a server somewhere and that they would definitely be coming around. You had better luck upstairs than down, but the atmosphere Under the Snug was better–cozier.

The best seat in the house was a circular booth at the bottom of the stairs. I was crowded into one when the unrequited love of my life walked down the stairs and was suddenly standing right in front of me. I hadn’t been told he was coming, which I know sounds a little weird seeing as I’m describing the first time we met. I had previously seen him on Facebook and had been asking a mutual to act as my wingman and introduce us. The wingman in question had not told me that he would be coming that night. In fact, the wingman in question had made it seem like it would only be the two of us on this particular night, which is why I was wearing an old pair of jeans and a dirty hoodie I had pilfered from an ex-boyfriend as person after person walked down the stairs and joined us at a booth that was becoming far too small for a party of our size. And then there was the person I wanted to see the most if I was prepared but the least in the state I was in. Maybe this is why he never wanted to try to love me back. First impressions matter and I had flubbed mine.

I was used to going to the Irish Snug at night–when the patio was lit with strings of light and the space was busy without being overcrowded. There was always just the right amount of people there. There was always room for precisely everyone you wanted to see, even if you had to move booths or find a spot outside, as we did on this particular night. At night the place seemed perfect, like an ideal Irish bar that might be transported out of a cliched movie about young poets living an idyllic life at a college in the Northeast. As to the authenticity, I cannot say, having never been to Ireland. I just know that it made me feel a certain way and that I wanted to feel that way.

I wanted to feel that way, which is something that is always important to remember when talking about unrequited love. You want to feel a certain way and can ignore things that aren’t true in order to continue feeling the way that matters most to you.

I was in love with the man I met at the Irish Snug for what felt like far too long, but which wasn’t very long at all. It takes a while to see things as they really are. There are times when I look back and think that he was different then, but the truth is that he was always just the same and I didn’t want to see it, just like I didn’t want to notice that the bartenders Under the Snug were always a little too snarky and that there was often an air of snobbery around the place. You rarely met anyone interesting there–instead it was a place to meet the people you already knew.

The last time I went was during the day. This could sound like a lie because it’s too neat a way to wrap this story up, but it’s true. I was there for an appreciation party, which in and of itself was lovely, despite the fact that the ceiling was too low in a way I never really noticed at night and the walls seemed almost unfinished. There was no light in that basement and during the day the artificial lights were much too bright. I don’t want to remember it this way, but it is a memory that I have of it, and it is the last one.

I prefer to remember a half-lit room, air smelling faintly of the cigarette smoke wafting in from the street and a manageable crowd speaking loud enough for you to have to speak up without having to yell hello to a man who will never love you back in a place that might have never been worth loving as much as I did.