Chatting on the internet is great, in fact it’s one
of my favorite wastes of time, but whilst I have previously
heard that loose words can start wars, I have recently learnt
that stray conversations can get you in serious shit, I mean
proper, “might get you deported” kind of shit.
The problems
began when my girlfriend of 3 months had found 3 weeks worth
of reasons to be unable to see me. This lead me to a not completely
unreasonable assumption that in the near future her main reason
to see me would be to announce that she was now going to start
seeing someone else.
In hindsight
I can see that I had jumped the gun and started to believe
it was over even before it was. I am not cheating type, so
I didn’t start seeing other women, but the plethora
of internet sites did encourage some premature window shopping
(the equivalent of buying next years Christmas presents in
the January sales, prudent, but wholly unnecessary). In Korea,
the internet is an accepted way of checking people out (see
www.seoulstylefriends.com for one of the many sites dedicated
to this), and from the comfort of your living room, it just
never seems entirely real. Korea does boast some of the world’s
highest internet usage (and addiction) rates, but when combined
with the NorthEast Asian shyness, meeting people from the
net is an idea more often toyed with than something actually
done (that being said if only 10% of people on these sites
actually meet, from the numbers online that’s still
a huge amount of cyber hookups).
So during
this absence of my newish girlfriend, I started talking to
people online (mainly through boredom of not having my girlfriend
around to talk to). I got chatting to what seemed like a sweet
girl, and judging by her profile photo she was pretty hot
too! We only chatted 3 times, but more or less when she found
out things weren’t going so good with my girlfriend,
she propositioned me, to which I said “yes”. We
didn’t agree a time, we never actually met, but in principle
we were going to go on a date.
Unfortunately
unbeknownst to me, my every word on MSN was being saved. Without
my consent I was effectively being cyber bugged (imagine how
you’d feel if when talking on the phone, someone secretly
kept a voice recorder; it would it make you think twice about
what you say). How did I know I was being recorded? I found
out from my girlfriend!
It appears
that someone circulated the chat to someone who knows someone
who knows my girlfriend. My once private and supposedly confidential
chat was now a matter of public knowledge. Would I have said
those things if I’d known my girlfriend was going to
see the chat? No. Was this an acceptable excuse I could use
with my girlfriend? Clearly not.
An argument
ensued, and several heart to heart and tears to tissue sessions
later, me and my girlfriend had bottomed out our issues. Whilst
I make no defense of what I did (or more accurately: what
I said I would do, I never actually acted on any of it), we
were both in the relationship and in retrospect agreed that
our communication had lead me to do what most would have done
in that situation. With slightly less trust we got back together
and that should have been the end of a rocky start to our
relationship…
…or
so I thought. Having traversed great emotional pain, my girlfriend
and I had sorted out our issues, but the ‘cute girl
on the internet’ turned out to be a sweet little nutcase.
Retrospectively she was claiming to have circulated our MSN
chat for my girlfriend’s sake (clan of sisterhood etc…),
but right up until the moment I told her I was no longer interested
she was still begging me to go on an date with her! It’s
now clear her plan was to boost her own chances by trying
to make me single again.
My hope
was that I would be left alone to continue groveling for my
girlfriend’s forgiveness and affections, but rejecting
this girl seemed to have invoked the wrath of a woman scorned.
Whilst I could entirely understand if my girlfriend bore a
grudge, this internet girl I’ve still never met turned
obsessive. She contacted my girlfriend and asked for a favor.
Apparently, according to net-girl, my girlfriend owes her
a favor for having dished the dirt on me (as if this act was
done through genuine consideration!). “She want’s
to get you deported” my girlfriend announced.
“Deported?
She can’t do that, she has no power”.
“Well,
she wants to know the name of your school, then she is going
to ring and complain about you doing private classes”.
“But
I don’t do private classes” I protested.
“Doesn’t
matter, if they believe her, which they probably will, then
your visa will be cancelled and you’ll be leaving the
country. She says she’s know people who have done it”.
A complete fix up. Effectively a girl I’ve never met
wishes to deprive Korea of one badly needed English native
teacher just because she has a personal problem with me. It’s
nothing to do with visas or my right to be here, its just
someone being vindictive.
In a bizarre
twist, the power of terminating me lies with my girlfriend.
Net-girl luckily knows next to nothing about my work (beyond
that I teach English), but in a uniquely Korean version of
loyalties my girlfriend is considering whether relationships
are stronger than Korean connections…
What have
I learnt from this? I’m not the first to go through
this, urban legend has it that the biggest reason for foreigners
getting deported is bitter exes’ (anyone else know about
the guy who used to smoke dope with his girl, then received
a drugs bust shortly after they broke up?). I guess the biggest
thing I’ve learnt is not to share details about work.
What they don’t know, they can’t use against you.
Dump
Me and I Deport You!