| Having
been here a few months now, my latest Korean dating discovery
happened whilst on a date with the new secretary from work.
Now I’m well aware that a sensible person would never
date someone who they work with, but:
aaa. given my ineptitude at
Korean I find myself willing to explore the possibilities
with whomever offers me a date in passable English
aab. I’m just not all
that sensible sometimes (if truth be known, this is clearly
the stronger of the 2 reasons)
Despite the ‘working together issue’, we managed
to make it to our first date without any of our other colleagues
knowing about it (why is it that whenever we’re not
supposed to do something, it always holds so much more appeal?).
We went to the cinema, which in hindsight is a limiting
date when in another country. Restricted to English speaking
movies, we had a choice of about 3 films. One started ridiculously
late. I’m no early riser so this wouldn’t usually
be a problem, but on a first date what you need is things
to talk about, particularly if you’re already facing
a language barrier. To catch a midnight movie would mean
that we have to find 3hrs worth of conversation from somewhere,
and to be quite frank I’m just not sure I’m
that interesting enough in upper-intermediate-level English.
Of the other 2 movies remaining, I vetoed one as being soppy
junk (the relationship would have to progress a lot further
before I would be prepared to sit through a dodgy chick
flick), but for some reason she didn’t have a problem
with seeing the other: ‘Tokyo Drift’ –
effectively car porn for immature men, not really a movie
for chicks.
We got hustled into the movie with only a few minutes to
spare and one dodgy leaking box of popcorn in my hand (I
had stupidly assumed the oil squeezer was toffee and pumped
it all over my popcorn which now leaving oil dripping out
the bottom – not exactly suave; but who the hell puts
oil on their popcorn?!).
After the movie we went to a café to talk about the
movie. Movies are like that, you spend 2hrs watching it,
then you get 1hr’s entertainment afterwards talking
about it afterwards. Anyway at the café she showed
me this silly little dog decoration on her phone. I pretended
to like it so as not to hurt her feelings (I mean, who the
hell decorates a phone for God’s sake? It’s
a phone, you talk, you don’t look at it). Unfortunately,
she then produced another matching decoration for me to
put on my phone! She seemed to be thinking ‘cute’,
but I was thinking ‘Oh my god, bunny boiler!’
The date had gone well up until this point, she was cute,
kind, and had a sweet way of laughing at my jokes, but irrespective
of all that, it was still only our first date! I liked her,
we had spoken about what we should do at the weekend, but
to start matching the way we look was way too far for me.
Okay, I will admit to suffering more acutely from relationship
claustrophobia than most, but I don’t think I was
being unreasonable in wanting to maintain my individuality
past the first date. In my life, I’ve lived with girls,
I’ve spent Christmases with girls, but I’ve
never been asked by a girlfriend to look in anyway identical
to her. The first time I thought it might happen would be
upon proposal of marriage, and even then I rather imagined
that we’d select suitably different rings; anyway
this was not marriage, this was not serious, this was not
even the second date, and yet here was a girl asking me
to make my mobile phone look the same as hers!
Whilst panic part of my mind was panic stricken, I begrudgingly
tied the silly plastic dog thing to my mobile phone. It’s
hard to fake a smile, but I did my best. I’ve learnt
through bitter experience to always smile when a girl wants
you to, and she definitely wanted me to like the gift. I
know a phone is only a small thing, but this is where things
start. I’ve seen (and laughed at) people with matching
t-shirts and matching sports shoes and in my head I was
imagining that it probably all started with a seemingly
innocent matching fake dog on their phone. Whilst this might
be great for some people, it’s definitely not to my
taste, I am far more into individualism than collectivism.
In the Western world, the only thing that couples should
match is our contribution to the bill when we go dutch.
Consider this from my perspective, I’m a guy, I like
being a guy, I pride myself on being a strong and independent
guy, I think people like my individuality, I do not want
to be under the thumb on the first date.
Whilst I don’t understand much about Korean culture,
I do understand enough to know that usually I don’t
understand (try explaining that when drunk). After the date
I asked some Korean friends to explain why anyone would
want to look like their partner? (I mean would any of us
want to date the mirror?)
It was (as I suspected) mostly about collectivism. It’s
a trend that seems to be fairly uniquely Korean, although
most of friends did agree that it tended to be something
that younger less mature people tend to do when they first
start dating. Apparently it goes as far as sports shoes,
hats, necklaces, watches, t-shirts, rings, cell phone decorations,
and pillow cases. I have no idea why people living in separate
houses care about having matching pillow cases but apparently
it helps the girl with bragging rights (‘my boyfriend
even uses the same pillow case as me…’ you can
imagine how it would go).
I must say, with all of my Korean friends being in their
twenties, most said that they had done the ‘matching’
thing when they were younger, but had since grown out of
it and now thought of it as ‘silly’. When asked
why people ever did it, most said it’s a combination
of insecurity and showing off (either “with this here
matching t-shirt I declare to the whole world that we are
so in love”, or “back off she’s mine,
look at the t-shirts buddy”). I am pleased to know
that it’s definitely a minority trend, and in fact
even then, according to my Korean friends, people should
only do it when the occasion arises (I’m thinking
doubles tennis, but they apparently meant a picnic would
be a suitable opportunity).
Inspired by the fact that most of my friends have grown
out of the matching thing, I have decided to continue dating
the secretary and wean her off the whole matching thing.
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