A new year means new possibilities, especially when it comes to romance. Whether you texted your ex over Christmas, or were visited by the ghosts of ghosters past, you can always consider your slate clean for the new year and get to swiping.
Doing just that is our latest crop of romantic hopefuls, as the First Dates Ireland restaurant reopened for a new season.
As always, the show has served up a host of diverse daters from all walks of life, but on last night's show we heard about bigamous husbands, learning to ride a unicycle and even an embarrassing, uh, recreational injury.
When Sasha, a leggy 22-year-old student from Co. Mayo, asked for a tall "jack the lad" who could keep up with her banter, we don't think she expected to be sitting across from Jordan, a 24-year-old from Limerick with a rake of tall tales.
The pair wasted no time in getting stuck into stories, with Jordan telling Sasha that he used to play soccer with the FAI. It was on the soccer pitch that he broke his neck.
"A ball was kicked through, it was really wet and I came out and went to pick up the ball, the striker went in and his knee basically connected with my head", he said. "Basically the back of my head was touching the back of my neck."
"I tried to play on and finally collapsed. I stayed, watched the rest of the match, went home and went to sleep. Woke up the next day, couldn't move anything."
MRIs and doctor's appointments followed, he said, while he had to wear a neck brace and couldn't move his head. His mammy even had to come help him dress.
Did he really just announce this on a First Date? 🍆 #FirstDatesIRL pic.twitter.com/S7IZ19aHFp
— RTÉ2 (@RTE2) January 20, 2022
If you thought that would be embarrassing, it wasn't the case for self-proclaimed mother's boy Jordan, who told Sasha "I tell her a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't tell my mother, but I tell her everything".
This is where the date gets memorable. Jordan revealed that he'd recently broken something else, after another date went particularly well. And naturally, he told his mammy all the details.
"I recently broke my penis. It full-on broke", he said. "I was in hospital and I had to get it glued back together. I rang her and told her in great detail what happened."
You might be asking, how does an accident worthy of a film scene even happen in real life? Jordan's quick in with the details. "I didn't break it, alright, a girl broke it".
Cool, anyway.
You'd nearly prefer the broken neck. #FirstDatesIRL
— Daragh Small (@daraghs0) January 20, 2022
"Basically, we were doing the thing, y'know? We're doing sex", he told an agape Sasha, adding that after a particularly abrupt movement, a type of "banjo string" snapped.
We'll spare the gruesome details since Sasha didn't have a choice, but suffice to say "it was pretty bad. Lost a lot of blood."
Jordan called an ambulance and was rushed to hospital, where the potential for embarrassment wasn't even over yet.
"The worst thing was, my aunt is a paramedic, I was terrified my aunt was going to have to come and look after me. It wasn't her, thankfully."
I didn't want my aunt who is a paramedic to see me but I'll tell the whole country my penis story instead. #FirstDatesIrl
— Eimear (@MissEims) January 20, 2022
You might be wondering how a date could be salvaged after that, but Jordan did impress one person that night: the doctor, who said it was the worst case of that particular injury he's even seen in his life".
What is there to say, except these succinct words from Sasha: "Wow, I wasn't expecting that over my chicken dinner!"
Well, except these even more succinct words from Jordan, of course: "It's all healed now, it's perfectly well-able to go."
Watch First Dates Ireland on Thursdays at 9:30pm on RTÉ 2.
