Blogger Notes

The comment on my last post and discussions with a couple other girls in my neighborhood really got me thinking about dating in Korea. "Should I even bother?" is quite the question of the hour!

Those who've followed me for a while know that I'm open to entering a serious relationship and getting married. In fact, that's pretty much what I'm looking for. I don't mind having friends of the opposite gender--as long as they're drama-free--but the likelyhood of that being the case among my peers gets slimmer and slimmer as I continue to age. If they were drama-free they'd be married. lol!

While I'm on the topic of married men, I was recounting k-dating horror #1 (Minwoo, aka Project Pat) to a couple of friends when one reels out the, "Let me tell you what happened to us last weekend..."

[Before we go there, this would be an appropriate time to point out that Project Pat actually had the balls to text me the next day. Instead of, "When can we get together so I can give you back your money?" this fool texts, "did you have a good time at the club?" The hell I did! I almost had to borrow money from my homegirl for the cover charge! I really need to let it go. I do...]

My girls headed down to a techno place called Jane's Groove. It caters to the English-speaking crowd in Hongdae. They're having a good time, dancing however one dances to techno, when they meet this Korean dude and his friend. Dude went to undergrad overseas. His English was good and he seemed friendly. No problem.

Some point as the night progressed and additional intoxicating beverages were consumed, everyone stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Friend 1 admired dude's scooter--very nice, very vintage. Dude proceeds to say how his girlfriend...well, wife, has one that matches it. WTH?! He and his homeboy were chatting my girls up ALL night! Whatevs right? No harm. No foul.

Well, they're pretty much over dude but he's all, "Come on, let's go get some coffee," a fairly reasonable late night/wee-hours-of-the-morning request. With a, "If you're paying," thrown out, off they went.

And things went downhill. Sometime in the next few minutes, "Do you girls wanna go to a hotel?" was said out loud, in public. Whaaaa??? The conversation wasn't even going in that direction...until then! Yes, my girl did check him about his wife and his drunk tail was all confused like, How did you know? ROFL!!! Then he pulls a desperate, "You could just come back and chill with us." (Acutally, it might have been the wingman that threw that one in. Either way...) My girls are like, WTF? Seriously?! Dude was mad bold and tried to defend himself with, "It's Korea. You know how it is." Lawd! Lawd, y'all! People like him are KILLING it for the decent ones. Killing it. Beatin' it dead in the street with a 2x4 on a cold winter's day in front of a hospital and no one's calling for help.

Dudes like that make Future Ex-Boyfriend seem like an angel! Then there's the one cutie at my school who majored in English and is, of course, married. It hurts my feelings. I seriously hear Shy Guy everytime I see him. *sigh* It will be alright though cause it has to. How does this relate to one-armed ladies? Not very well other than both things have been on my mind...

Considering the size and population of Seoul, there should be a lot more homeless beggar-type people out and about than there are. I don't know where they're all hiding out but occasionally they make an appearance and it's a jarringly third-world like experience. As most of my readers know, first-world beggars are quite a problem. For the love of God, they have entitlement issues. Like, "Hello, I live in a freaking first world country, OF COURSE you should give me a dollar!" Anyone else ever been cussed out by a homeless guy? Raise your hand. Heck, that vibe caught up with me all the way in Baja Mexico. It's royally annoying.

Anyhoo, my first encounter with a beggar in Seoul was a man laying on the stairs of a subway with his head covered. I thought maybe he had passed out or something until I noticed his hands were out and cupped together. He had a few coins in them and that clued me in. More than half the time I've seen people begging, they were either blind, or missing limbs. So...when an old Korean lady came walking through the teacher's room the other day, I had no idea who she was. I had seen her come in and didn't pay much attention. At some point though, I was one of the few teachers left in the office. The little old lady comes up to me and speaks in her soft, polite-sounding voice. She told me her name then propped her little black duffle bag on my desk/chair and started pulling out socks. My brain went into overdrive!

Whenever people talk to me in Korean as if I should be understanding them it makes me panic because I'm the sort of person who really tries to make appropriate listening faces. This is virtually impossible when you don't know what the heck is going on! I probably ended up wearing my panic face. I hate it when that happens unintentionally. Seriously. It's embarrasing.

So there I am wearing my panic face when one of the grumpy male teachers (probably seeing the panic face and not wanting to offend "the foreigner") tells the ajumma I don't speak Korean but that doesn't stop her. She keeps doing her little presentation in the super polite voice while he bristles past in a huff. At this point I'm extra freaked out because I understood what he said, he seemed kind of rude which I didn't like, and socks keep coming out of that duffle bag like she borrowed it from Mary Poppins. Geez, I don't need any socks! I'm thinking as they keep pouring out of the bag then I'm like, well I kinda do...but I don't know what I want. And those 'flesh' ones are definitely not my color. *Auugggh!!!* And with that, I waved her away.

And in that moment, I noticed her arm---the one she wasn't using---the shaped sleeve of her blazer that was unnaturally round, hanging straight and...was empty. She slipped the socks back into the bag, bowed her head politely and off she went. In that moment, I felt like a big jerk. Heck, I still do.

I was unnecessarily annoyed and missed an opportunity to make someone's day.

AND...I'm blaming it all on the boys!!! If I hadn't been so preoccupied with the shallow, selfishness of others, I might have been in a more pleasant and readily giving mood. ; )

So back to the question...Should I even bother?

Of course!

I don't really need another pair of cheap socks but it would have given an old lady a moment of dignity and heck, maybe lunch for the day. She would've gotten a smile about the black foreigner girl who bought socks even though she couldn't speak Korean.

As for boys, I refuse to believe that this country is full of jerks. I have no problem however, believing that online sites are populated with them or that dance clubs are or even, that half of the guys who speak English here use it as a calling card for free booty. The same is true of American guys and I haven't quite given up on them yet.

I think of a French-Canadian girl out here and her cute Christian Korean husband and know that anything's possible even though tons of things are not likely!

And on that positive note, I leave you with the song that stopped me in my tracks at eMart. I was about to bust a slow dance by. my. self. After extensive googling, I found it: Good Love by Dynamic Duo with Kim Bumsoo rocking the vocals. I hope these lyrics are, shall we say, appropriate cause some of the babies heard me playing this in the classroom...