Having jammed with the Edge, Sharon Shannon and more, music-loving Paul from Dublin knows a thing about making sweet, sweet music, and on his visit to the First Dates restaurant, he had every intention of staying in tune with his date.
As the doors to the Gibson Hotel opened to a new batch of romantic hopefuls, Paul walked in looking for someone who can hold a conversation and "be good craic". When asked what 'love' is to him, he said: "A four-letter frightening word!
"But you've got to take the leap every now and then, and this is my leap."
Lucky for him, he leaped right in the path of Aoife from Dublin, who was looking for something more than the usual casual dating.
Before long, the pair were swapping dating stories and sharing what they do for work, as well as their true passions. Aoife revealed that her passion led her to working for Pieta House, as she had always wanted to make "a difference in the world".
Noting that dating requires you to be vulnerable, Paul soon opened up about the hard times he had experienced growing up, detailing instances of bullying that he said have stayed with him.
"School was horrible for me. I used to be held horizontally between six or eight lads and head first into the side of lockers like a battering ram", he said.
"You'd tell the teachers, they'd bring them into the office and the lads turn around 10 or 15 minutes later and they go, 'what are you ratting me out for?' and they pick you up and do it again. Harder."
Asked by producers how he moved on from such experiences, he said, "I didn't. [It] deeply scarred me."
He was quick to highlight how a family member stepped in to support him when things with his ex and mother of his child "went really south".
Telling Aoife about his younger brother, he called him his "right hand man".
"That man has helped me, his older brother, in way more things in life than a little brother should ever have been expected to help out with. When this thing went sideways I was in a really, really bad place and my brother was the man to step in and help.
That's all from us for tonight, but why not apply for the next series of #FirstDatesIRL?
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"He's a serious human. I don't believe he knows how much he's done for me in life."
By the end of their date, the pair were clearly on the same page. "No matter what conversation we were having it was just having the craic, we're here for the exact same reason", Paul said.
"I wasn't expecting that, I won't lie. It was even better than what I was imagining it could have been."
With Aoife feeling the same, and noting that they had "loads to talk about", it's no surprise that this date was a match!
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
