Not of the family fold

I've alluded before to the fact that Ireland is a pretty exclusionary place. The legendary friendliness of the Irish is about as real as leprechauns. Sure, if you come over for a visit, you'll run into some real down-home Irish folk who will talk to you as you sit in the pub, or chat with you as you stand in line. They'll also stop to give you directions - sometimes. What I'm talking about, though, is a real friendliness - a desire to become friends with someone, not just the surface stuff. In that regard, the Irish are not friendly at all. Many people in Dublin go home to the country every weekend. They only work and crash during the week in Dublin - they live in the country. Therefore, it's not worth their while to make friends with anyone in the city. It's especially not worth their while to make friends with someone who just moved here and might be leaving at any given time. Most people here have the same friends as when they were four. I can't compete with that, and nor do I necessarily want to, but you can definitely tell that for many people, there just isn't time or room for newbies.

Often, when meeting new people, I inevitably get asked when I'm going home. I often get the impression that I'm not asked out of interest, but in order for them to gauge how much effort they should put into getting to know me better. After over a year in Dublin, I have one Irish friend.

The simple response to this is "join a club". Well I've tried that. It's actually easier said than done here. I work in the sticks, so by the time I arrive back in the city after work, many courses have already started - including the French class that I took last year and would like to build upon. I've looked into taking a writing or editing course, but despite this being the land of the Celtic Tiger, it's actually hard to find information online about taking a part-time degree course without enrolling into a full program. I know I should probably call the Universities, for info, but well, that's just hard isn't it. Working in high-tech, and being from North America, I am of the opinion that if an organisation doesn't have the proper information easily accessible online, then they just can't be very good. I've looked into joining a hill walking group, but any web sites I've checked aren't exactly advertising for new members. You have to apply for membership, and if they like you and you're compatible, you can come out for a "test walk", and if they still like you, you're in. They all sound very exclusionary about how the members have all been together for several years, and new members are elected by committee, but I'm sure it's more likely that new members are only elected if they know someone in the club already. I tried to join a tag rugby team as well. On the web site, it says that if you're a player looking to join a team, click on the link to enroll once the season opens. Well, once the season opened the link was removed from the web site. I emailed in my interest instead, but was told to apply through the web site. When I replied that the link wasn't set up, I didn't get a response and it wasn't fixed until all spots were "full". I think it was intentional. I think they actually only allow individuals to join if existing teams are crying out for additional players.

Everything I've experienced here tells me that people just don't want to open their doors to newcomers. Many foreigners I've encountered here have expressed the same difficulties. Many have said that when trying to join clubs, they get the impression that they are turned away because they're foreign. Of course, most foreigners want to join clubs because they're used to a more active lifestyle than what can be found here, they tire easily of going to the pub all the time, and they're looking to meet people and make friends. However, having two Poles, a Slovakian, a French person and an American in one's hill walking club would certainly change the personality of it, and I can see why some people would be reluctant to let that happen.

Someone at work alerted me to a tag rugby team that was being formed through one of the other offices. I expressed interest and filled out the questionnaire. Then I heard nothing for over a month, so I just figured that I didn't meet their criteria (ie. I'm not Irish). Yesterday, the captain wrote to me saying that he's having difficulty with my registration. The company we work for is sponsoring the team, however the stipulation is that all team members must be permanent employees. I'm a contractor. Therefore, I can't be on the team. He's apparently asked for an exception, but what it looks like is that I will be able to join, but will have to pay extra as the sponsorship amount will be lessened since they're only sponsoring the actual employees and not me. It's so frigging ridiculous. The fact that after nine months I still haven't been made permanent is annoying enough, but a whole other story which I may or may not write about. However, what gets me the most is that every day in my email and other communications, I keep getting all this BS about how they want all people working here to feel welcome and at home and take part in company activities. I don't see why someone who has been working with the company on a perma-temp basis should be excluded from that. I work alongside everyone else, I put just as much in, I keep being told to "get involved", but then when I try to do so, I'm turned down. It makes me wonder whether I'm not better off at a company like Microsoft where the perma-temps are almost completely segregated from the regular employees instead of this half-and-half stuff. For an American company, it's so Irish - friendly, but not too friendly.

All I want is to belong to something.