First Dates’ Derek ‘couldn’t be happier’

A Belturbet broadband engineer who appeared in the latest episode of First Dates says he “couldn’t be happier” with how things went. But why?

Single for some time, Derek O’Reilly admits to the Celt that prior to his appearance at the First Dates restaurant his confidence “wasn’t overly great”.

He remembers the casting session where producers bring hopefuls into a blank room and ask them a series of often personal questions.

One in particular caught Derek by surprise.

“It was like a big therapy session. This was a week after a big music festival, Beyond the Pale, so I was a bit delicate as it was,” he laughs. “But when they asked me ‘do I ever get lonely?’ I thought ‘f**kin hell!’. I started welling up. Seriously! I couldn’t stop myself. But the truth is I don’t get lonely all the time. I’ve good friends, good family, a good social life, but there are times and I think it’s healthy to be able to admit it to yourself, that yeah, sometimes I do.”

He adds: “All that was on screen is me, no bravado, just me.”

There was even a shout out from Derek for his parents, Brian and Phyllis.

Being on the show, the reaction from friends, and particularly how he got on with Karen sitting opposite, certainly has helped Derek get his “mojo back”.

“It was the shot in the arm I needed if you like,” he says of his programme participation.

Shot in the arm indeed.

“How are you fixed?” asked Derek.

The pair even shared a kiss on screen during the show. And, after dinner was done, cameras showing the couple grabbing a taxi to popular Dublin’s pub Cassidy’s.

Derek and Karen met a second time after the First Dates’ dinner, with the local lad doing his best to promote the tourist appeal of his home county.

Karen travelled to Cavan and the pair climbed Cuilcagh together, as Derek promised. Karen even got to meet Derek’s cat Ron Burgundy. It was kind of a big deal.

However, that’s as far as it went between them.

“The initial attraction was real and it was there. We still send the odd text message just to check in with each other. But after that [second] date, we both were on the same page. She lives in Kildare, I’m in Cavan, an hour and 40 minutes away. You just got the vibe it wasn’t going to work. It was all very amicable and we’re good friends about it.”

Full disclosure - three weeks after Derek appeared on First Dates Ireland he met another girl and asked her out for a “coffee and a walk”.

“I asked her straight out, which is something I’d never done before, and we’re dating since.”

Without his First Dates’ experience Derek doubts he would have had the confidence to act on impulse.

“Five months later, we’re still together. One hundred per cent, if I’d didn’t [go on First Dates] I wouldn’t have had the confidence to ask her out.”

In fairness to Derek’s new girlfriend, she’s understanding of why he chose to appear on the show.

“My reasons for going on the show were for all the right reasons. I was hoping to meet somebody, and in a way I have. It mightn’t have been what the show intended perhaps, but I couldn’t be happier with where I am and how things are going right now.”

On the important biscuit question posed by show producers when playing up the prospect that Derek gets a cup of tea at every house at which he works, he draws the line at “ginger nuts”.

“They shouldn’t be let out,” he chuckles. “Mikados, if I had to say, would be my favourite.”

Derek meanwhile is set to appear with the cast of The Cornmill theatre company in an upcoming production of Tom Murphy’s ‘A Whistle in the Dark’, due to take to the stage at the end of February.