All women are equal: we’ve got a shot with Paul Mescal
IT’S true: we probably all need to calm down about Paul Mescal. But, in many ways, Paul Mescal needs to calm down himself: the Normal People beauty has spent the last couple of weeks dropping casual bombs in interviews about looking for a wife, being papped in a series of sensational get-ups, and auctioning off Connell’s iconic chain for Pieta House — which is, let’s face it, a very sexy thing to do.
At this stage, Paul Mescal knows the effect he has on women. “I am not Connell and nor do I want to be him,” he says as women everywhere sigh, ‘‘that’s such a Connell thing to say’’. But then — with hundreds of thousands of us locked down, touch-starved and on heat since the series dropped — he should know better than going out for a jog, topless in his GAA shorts with a chain around his neck. Not Connell, indeed.
“Maybe what’s sexy about Connell,” he speculates, while (probably) oiling up his abs for a run, “is he’s that kind of classic back footed, aloof, smart... I’m definitely not back footed or aloof.”
But he’s definitely smart: with the publicity tours that would have usually accompanied such a success out of the question, Paul knows he needs to be seen somehow. And how! There was nothing aloof about the way he popped to the shops only days later, resulting in paparazzi shots that sent every bored millennial woman into a Sherlockian frenzy. Who has been keeping his hair this cute? Is it the same person who the two tins of pink gin is for? Or is Paul
Mescal so comfortable in his masculinity that he drinks pink gin himself ? Is the 1990s aesthetic over now Paul’s been seen in an 1980s primary coloured racing jacket and Raybans? Is there anything this man can’t pair with GAA shorts? How many does he own? Is using black wired earphones a retro affectation? What’s making him smile on his phone? Were all the other ciders gone and is that why he picked Crabbies?
Like some class of stubborn boomer, he carries it all precariously on his person — despite presumably knowing that he could make tote-bags hot overnight. It takes a particular kind of confidence to stroll through London with a packet of prawn cocktail crisps while being Ireland’s hottest property.
It’s a bold statement of a crisp: contentious, surprising, prawn cocktail is punk. And, obviously, there’s nothing Irish about prawn cocktail. This is the new generation of Irish diaspora, more secure in themselves, not needing to cling to suitcases of Barry’s tea bags to feel at home.
Paul has also recently talked about how much he’s looking forward to getting back on the dating scene, a comment which, in this climate, is throwing petrol on a fire. Obviously, I’ve been thinking a lot about who is going to date Paul Mescal. In many ways she’ll be a Meghan Markle figure and I don’t envy her: the pressure will be enormous. I’ve concluded that, to prevent widespread unrest, she can only be one of the following: 1) thoroughbred celebrity supermodel royalty like Kaia Gerber; or newly single Cara Delevingne (if any straight white dude has a shot, it’s Paul Mescal); but preferably Andie McDowell’s luminous daughter, Margaret Qualley; 2) A nice Aoife from back home with a relatable fake tan habit;
3) Daisy EdgarJones.
“I’ve had no kind of opportunity to be like meeting somebody new or being remotely intimate with anybody,” he says. And in a way, this is a beautiful time: when all man-fancying women can come together in solidarity and think, ‘‘at least none of us have Paul Mescal’’. It gives the illusion of equality, like any of us might have a shot: he just has to keep us hanging.
Mark my words: that man will be photographed in a sarong next week strolling through Hackney; holding a bunch of peonies, a packet of three Ferrero-Rochers and a copy of Take a Break.
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In years to come, the history books and think pieces will record that the golden corona lockdown ended in Ireland on May 28, when Matt Damon left Dalkey.
For weeks, Matt Damon had been a talisman, a portent of better days to come. Matt Damon was Ireland’s unlikely mascot in the most unsettling times it had seen in decades. On film, we’ve seen Matt Damon stranded in war zones; he’s been stranded in space on two separate occasions — but he’s never been so winning as the time he spent stranded here, around the place in anti-Mescalian forgettable hoodies with his Supervalu bag, game for selfies and helping to raise money for Pieta House (as we’ve established: hot).
Ireland was quick to humblebrag about how it’s no surprise — celebrities love it here because ‘‘no one bothers them’’.
Naturally, we also charted his every move, and spent hours on the internet speculating about the contents of his Supervalu bag. We essentially peer pressured him into speaking to us as a nation on the radio, by means of Bono. Bono is a tragic, curious figure for most millennials, and we were touched by this plaintive gesture to his people — like that English captain who raised millions for the NHS walking around his garden. But now he’s gone. We found out when his Dalkey bakery posted a picture of casual Matt clutching (as is his custom) shopping bags laden with local goods: “Our last visit from Matt and his family for a while. Safe travels!” A more elegant, more Irish, goodbye is hard to imagine.
With Matt gone, lockdown feels formless and frightening. He was an anchor, a shaft of brilliant light through the darkness of a global pandemic. It’ll be alright — but we might need Paul Mescal back.
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Meanwhile, it was a good week for the Irish internet millennials, who marked the second anniversary of repealing the Eighth: reflecting on the incredible and moving power of collective action and democracy.
We watched democracy burn in the UK as the government spent an entire week trying to gaslight their nation into believing that driving across the country with Covid symptoms at the height of the pandemic was ‘‘acting with integrity’’.
If the timing wasn’t a small gift to make up for all the loudly patronising disbelieving English feminists uselessly tweeting during the Repeal campaign — who just couldn’t imagine such moral hypocrisy from their own government — I don’t know what is.