Dear Dáithí: Help — my boyfriend's GAA obsession is wearing me down

"Outside of this man’s GAA fetish, he really seems to have a lot going for him and as you say he ticks all the boxes: right age; doesn’t live with his mother, and hasn’t ghosted you."

Mon, 15 Jul, 2024 - 11:44

Daithi Ó Sé

Dear Dáithí,

I’ve started a relationship with a lovely guy I met online. He seems to be ticking all my boxes — he’s the right age, he doesn’t live at home with his mother, and he hasn’t ghosted me. The problem is he is obsessed with GAA,

I mean, he could talk for hours about games I have absolutely no interest in.

That was OK at the start, but we are six months in now, and it’s starting to wear me down. He wears his county’s jersey to bed, all of his spare time seems to revolve around getting tickets to matches, going training, going to matches to play, going to matches to watch... there is always something, hurling, football, and recently he’s started coaching some B team or something.

He is kind, funny, good looking, and I’m starting to really fall for him. But do I want the rest of my life to be consumed by GAA? Is there any curing it?

I’ve been asking the wife for years to wear a GAA jersey to bed. Club or county it wouldn’t matter to me, even a Cork one. I still have hope that one day it will happen because that’s the kind of gobshite I am.

I wake every second June morning with that hope still in my heart, but no, it hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t even ask her to put the togs and socks on, only the jersey. Is that too much to ask for? The togs and socks might drive me over the edge.

You poor créatur, you’ve hit the jackpot without realising it. It’s amazing, sometimes when things are going so well in your life you try and find the negatives.

The reason why I say this is because of the structure of your letter. Nice easy start and then a big, huge bit about him and the GAA and his obsession. But the real story here is the ending, that you’re ‘starting to really fall for him’. If this was such a problem, I don’t think you’d be falling for him.

This to me is the key, and the GAA part is him being away from you and I’m not too sure you like that. This is a good thing though, you want to be with him as much as you can, but you see the GAA coming in the way.

This isn’t the case at all, the GAA will be your ‘you’ time down the road. There will come a time when he’ll head off to matches and you’ll be delighted for the bit of space.

That said, at the moment it sounds like you don’t have an interest or hobby like your boyfriend has in the GAA and I think it’s time you thought of what you would like to do with your spare time.

This really is a wonderful opportunity for you to do something you’ve always wanted to do, whether that’s alone or with a friend.

You’ll be doing it knowing that himself will be away watching matches, shooting the breeze with people who love chatting about the GAA. It’s a win-win situation, and I’m sure he’ll be happy that you’re doing something you like too.

One thing I really like about your boyfriend is that he is now coaching. This has a few elements to it and one of them is it’s him giving back to the community. A lot of people take this for granted.

These people give up their own time for free and get nothing only abuse from others sometimes.

So fair play to him, and let’s jump way down the road here for the craic, can you imagine someday in the future if you have children, who will be bringing them to training and doing all the heavy lifting in that department only himself, and you can be as much involved as you please.

Outside of this man’s GAA fetish, he really seems to have a lot going for him and as you say he ticks all the boxes: right age; doesn’t live with his mother, and hasn’t ghosted you. That sounds like you’ve been ghosted before, and I’d imagine that that is a very strange thing to happen.

This man is funny and kind and good-looking. He has a lot going for him. Years ago, we would have settled for own house, own car, and own teeth, but I see the stakes are higher these days — might be a good thing.

The only cloud around here is that all the GAA talk might be wearing you down, and this is something you’re going to have to work on. This is a simple conversation where you tell him how you feel.

I’d say ‘look we’re going for dinner on Saturday night, and I don’t want any talking about what match is on, etc’ sometimes the ‘ye’ time must be mapped out too, there is nothing wrong with that.

He might not even realise he talks GAA all the time, so a little reminder is no harm; even say something like ‘I’m mad about you, but some days you need to tone it down a bit’.

It’s not like he has to give it up, but on the other side if there’s a big match coming up with the county or his club, be part of the conversation and show an interest and don’t put yourself on the outside.

I had to laugh at the end part of your letter — can you cure him you ask. The only way you will cure this lad is if you put him in a bath of salt and leave him there.