Intro

At the end of 2015, the beginning of 2016 I hung around with Karen and Eoin Burns, a lot. They’re currently in a relationship now but the story of how it happened and Karen being the third wheel is an interesting story to tell, I find.

The Craic

Around September of 2015, Karen stopped coming to the open mic, so I saw less of her. That winter was quiet enough as there wasn’t much people gigging and the open mics crowd size was less. Other than the odd chat on Facebook Messenger (I’m very bad for the messenger) I didn’t see her much until she started coming back to the odd open mic around January 2016. Out of all the times I’d seen her, she was really loud and a bit attention seeking which I found strange. I tried to avoid her but the smoking area in the Roisin isn’t big enough. After one of the open mics, I was chatting to a friend who also did the open mic. His name was Eoin Burns. It’s still Eoin Burns, this story is just past tense. It happened in the past. Eoin Burns was a comedian that was there every week. We got along very well as we’re both handsome, intelligent men.

Karen came over as Eoin and I were having a conversation on Epistemology. She stood there as we were conversing. After 5 minutes, I had no choice but to introduce her. The two began getting along very well. As I stood there, they shouted words loudly at each other, giving my philosophical mind a bit of a rest. It was getting late and there was no banter to be had, we decided it was time to leave. Because Eoin Burns has a car, he’d drive me home saving me a 40 minute walk back to Mervue. As Karen was about to leave, Eoin Burns offered to give her a lift home too. I said that there was no need as she only lived up the road at the time. She took the lift, regardless. I refused to give up my front seat.

As the weeks went on, they became very good friends as he continued to drive her 5 minutes up the road each night. Considering the distance he parked from the Roisin Dubh, and the time it took to get through the narrowness of Eglinton Street, driving her home took the same amount of time as letting her walk home. Whenever she came to see me perform she’d always have sweets for me, which I never argued with. She had discovered my weakness and used it to mess with me. As the open mic was on, someone was singing a song and the room was extremely quiet. She then appeared beside me and showed me a bag of Haribo. I took it off her hands and then realized opening the bag would cause so much noise. I felt like I was holding a bomb. The worst part was that I had to stand there for another 3 minutes waiting for the song to finish, dying to eat the Haribo sweets. Looking back now, I should have just left the room but hindsight is amazing.

As the weeks went on, I noticed they were doing a lot of talking on messenger. At this stage I had already put two and two together, I just wasn’t 100% sure that the two and two were there. I have a very bad habit of thinking there’s a two and two but sometimes the twos end up being sevens or threes and I somehow bring imaginary numbers into the equation.

After a while, I found out they began hanging out without me. I was not fond of this, but I also had to realize I don’t own people. I’m a very possessive person. At this point I was fully aware what was going on, I was just getting really fed up that nobody was telling me! (Side note, a very similar story has happened recently with a couple other people and they also wanted to keep it a secret from me until one of them eventually told me last week) Eventually I just messaged Karen and was like, ‘So when can I stop pretending that you and Burnsy aren’t a thing?’. She replied ‘You’re very good at spotting things I see’. I wasn’t in the form for Karen’s sarcasm. I was feeling betrayed. Apparently Joycee, Jane and Mark knew before me which really upset me. I forgave them after a few months tho, they just had to adopt me.

As their relationship went on, they started seeming a lot more happier. This disgusted me. Karen continued to be the third wheel in the car home after the open mic every week and I kept my front seat. Everyone was happy. Eoin Burns would use her bathroom very often while I sat in the car listening to RTE lyric FM. He uses the bathroom a lot for someone with only one bladder.

In 2017, Karen got an infection where her stomach began swelling up. I think it had something to do with her diabetes. It’s always doing weird stuff. As the food infection worsened, she got bigger. Around this time I didn’t see her too often cause she had my head wrecked with her happiness but we met up for lunch in Biteclub one day. She said she’d got the food infection checked by a doctor and turns out it had mutated into a child. I asked her if Eoin Burns was aware of this. Apparently he was. That was good. I was happy for them.

Because of Karen’s diabetes, they had to get regular check ups to make sure it was OK, More than the normal preggers person. The first check up they had to make sure there was a chance of it surviving. When the hospital called Eoin Burns to give him the results, he told them to call him back because he was ordering a chicken roll. I respect that he has his priorities in order. They called Karen then and told her the baby was sound. That was good news.

I kept up to date with their pregnancy, even while I was in Edinburgh while I worked the Fringe festival for 6 weeks. When I came back, I visited them in the hospital as often as I could. One day I messaged Karen asking if I could come in cause I was having a very boring day. She didn’t reply so I messaged Eoin. He ignored me too. Turns out they had the baby earlier than expected so I forgave them after a few days.

Conclusion

They now live happily with their tamagotchi. Because I was part of the reason they met, I partly take credit for it. I hope the best for the both of them in the future and hopefully young Maxwell won’t turn into a hipster.