There has been non-stop torrential rain for several days now and it’s
not expected to let up anytime soon. We’ve been trapped in our miserable
little flat, doing our best to keep amused and active although much of
the time is spent zoning out in front of the TV and bickering over who
gets to use the computer. Needless to say, the weather reflects our ever
damp, gray spirits. The last week in particular has been fraught with
disappointments and frustrations.
Several days ago, while enjoying the food festival, we were approached by a man named Dave who had learned about our web development services after some of promotional documents had fallen into his hands. To make a long story short, he owns a freight software company and was interested in giving his business a long overdue rebranding of his print collateral, and to market his services online with a complicated and extensive website. We had a long meeting with him and for the next week Chris and I spent all of our time researching the market, performing comparison studies, looking into various technologies, creating sample wire frames, and devising six original logo designs. We determined a fair and reasonable price and desperate to work, cut that price in half and presented all of this to him. Although he is a strange personality, he said he was really happy with our materials and wanted to move forward “as quickly as possible” and promised to sign the contract the next day. We arrived for our meeting the following day to be told by his wife that he had an emergency and would call us later that night. Surprise, surprise, he never called, answered our calls or returned our messages and now he’s in Greece vacationing with his family. What the heck? I don’t know how much good it does here, but he did sign a non-disclosure agreement although let’s face it, we’re not about to sue anyone. But the whole experience did leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
The night we thought we closed the deal on the project, Chris and I went to the wine bar in town to toast our success. Since we were the only customers, we made an effort to engage the bartender/owner in conversation and despite seeming uninterested in talking to us, he had very little to distract/protect him from our high spirits and barrage of questions. After two glasses of wine, I admitted that I found it difficult to make friends in Kinsale, but that I guess it would take some time. He responded by leaning across the bar, looking me in the eye and saying slowly and deliberately “Let me tell you a story about this woman from New Zealand who moved to Kinsale. She lived here for six years but ended up going back home because she was never accepted.” Wow. You’ve got to be impressed by the Irishman’s ability to insult you in the guise of relaying a story. But that is how most of the town treats us – not with an open hostility that you can respond to and defend against, but with in an icy, slightly bemused reserve that clearly says, “I Don’t Care About You.” And when you’ve spent the last two months desperate for friendship and searching out every iota of potential and willing to work for next to nothing (or in Chris’ case, nothing) and being compulsively polite and looking on the bright side of things, well at some point you will look in the mirror and not recognize the person looking back at you because the stranger looking back at you is a sucker.
In light of this, I know one day I will look back upon my time here and say “Ah, Kinsale. Pretty town. Great prawns. Crappy people” and know that I gave it my all.