Normal People’s Paul Mescal Says He’s Looking Forward To Dating After Lockdown

As soon as Normal People aired, searches for whether Paul Mescal{ =nofollow}was single went through the roof. But now we have the answer from the man himself... The Irish actor, who plays Connell in the hit series, has revealed that he's excited to start dating once lockdown restrictions are lifted. (And we're sure he will have had no shortage of offers from his 626,000 Instagram followers.)

In an appearance on I'm Grand Mam podcast, Paul said he had been using dating apps, but stopped using them weeks before lockdown happened. ‘I stopped using it weeks before... because I didn't like it anyway,’ he explained, adding: ‘To be honest I'm really looking forward to dating.’

‘I'm trying not to think of it being weird because... look we've been in lockdown for [expletive] months,’ he continued. ‘I've had no kind of opportunity to be like meeting somebody new or being remotely intimate with anybody.’ And he might even be ready to tie the knot, once this is all over. ‘I think we're at the point where I want to get married and settle down,’ Paul added. ‘But you know that kind of hysterical thing where if lockdown ever happens again, I'm making sure that I'm married. But yeah, I am looking forward to dating.’

And if you're also wondering what happened to Connell and Marianne's relationship{ =nofollow}, then you're in luck too. The short story Sally Rooney based Normal People on, called In The Clinic, has recently been unearthed (which you can read in full here).

(Spoiler alerts!) Following a similar pattern, Connell is recently single after splitting from his girlfriend Lauren, and Marianne, who has recently split from her boyfriend Daniel. The short story also appears to follow the same pattern of both Connell and Marianne being stubborn, and not expressing their feelings that viewers of Normal People often urged for. A line reads, 'Well, don’t worry, Marianne says. I know we’re both single now, but I’m not going to ask you to be my boyfriend.'

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