Online
Well, there are two stories. The made up one about how we met in South Korea 12 years ago, and I tracked her down when I returned to the country and we started dating.

The reality is we just met on an online dating site. I was new in South Korea and knew I didn't have much chance of landing a serious relationship. Basically, there are a limited number of ways to meet girls in this country.

1) Booking clubs - you go with friends and sit in a room. A waiter will go and grab female patrons of the club (never prostitutes, despite what it sounds like), and drag them over. They are literally forced to go, but they may leave as soon as they've been introduced. You then must buy them expensive drinks, and repeat this process all evening.

2) Sleazy pick-up bars with bad music, where you're likely to get a veritable Noah's Ark of STDs. Generally, Korean girls who have White Fever are skanks who've slept all around the expat community.

3) Getting fixed up by someone. Not a good idea, considering most of the offers came from my very Christian boss. Did I mention that this is an extremely Christian country? About half the population are Christians, and they're almost all bad Christians who will try to convert you, tell you you're going to Hell, and you should really come to their church and donate money. And almost everyone is Confucianist, which in combination with Christianity really makes for a lousy time.

4) Punk scene girls. I immediately got in close with the South Korean punk scene, which was good because most of these kids are very much unlike other Koreans. I took a liking to one girl, who was the drummer of a very good band (think Toy Dolls with bad English). We went out, and she took me back to her place. There, she told me to turn around while she changed. I decided against making a move then, which many have told me was the wrong choice. Then she gave me a gift: a pack of dried seaweed. What do you say to that? After I'd failed to make a bold move, we went to an Internet cafe, where she logged into World of Warcraft and zoned me out.

I met some of my male Korean friends, and I told one guy I was interested in her, asking him if she had a boyfriend. His answer: "Yeah: me." That was not a good night.

5) Online dating. Okay, so I registered a profile on a number of sites, going as far as I could with each one without actually paying money. By the way, an interesting tip I discovered somehow, on many dating sites, if you register a female account, you may then preview as many personal ads as you want, which means you don't have to pay to look at girls' ads. Then you can just log back into your male account and message them. Do not make a mistake with this though.

Most of the Korean girls on these sites seemed to be looking for friends to practice English, and penpals. I figured out right away not to go for the hard sell.

The female profiles were all pretty well the same, so I sent out a bunch of messages and got a few replies back. One girl in the town I was in agreed to meet me. Her profile photo was a blurry, dark, unflattering headshot. Fortunately, when we met in person, she was much better looking than I'd thought possible. We went out a few times, with me slowly pressuring her to hold hands and we kissed a couple times. Then she told me she couldn't see me anymore because I wasn't Christian.

I went home extremely frustrated, and there was another automatic message from one of the dating sites. I'd been deleting them all for the past several weeks, but I figured what the hell. Just a message from a girl commenting about my taste in music, nothing too special. Then my eyes caught this part: "Religion: atheist." I sent a reply and we ended up adding each other on MSN.

She turned out to be two years little older than me (27 at the time), and she was obsessed with foreign films and all the right bands. We had long engaging MSN conversations, sometimes going to sunrise (on weekdays when I had to work the next day). However, she refused to meet because she said she was living with her parents for a few weeks. One day, she told me she hadn't been honest with me, and she was married. She had a daughter, whose name was April. And she kept calling me a fool. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out there was no husband and it was currently April Fool's Day.

We finally agreed to meet on April 18. I waited at the subway station, same place I met the last girl. She was late. Twenty minutes after she was supposed to arrive, a worn-out old woman with a baby dragged her kid over to me, and she told her son "Say hello." I nearly had a heart attack. Then she walked her son away--I guess she just wanted her son to practice English. Finally my date showed up, wearing cowboy boots and already drunk from a lunch meeting with friends. I tried taking her to a restaurant I liked, but we got lost and ended up in a red light district. She slapped me and I led her the right way.

Long story short, we got too drunk that night and I brought her back to my apartment to show her my music collection. In a haze of drunkenness I kissed her. She left shortly after, and I thought I'd gone too far and scared her off. Then the next day she called me and we met up at a punk show. A couple years later, we ended up getting married, and we've been together for over four years.
(racetraitor has an alibi for, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 3:40, 3 replies)

Ah So
It's hard enough, let alone in a crazily different culture... Well done Sir, and nicely told! 'click'
( elgordo, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 10:05, closed)

Envies
You arranged things to stay in interesting places as well as found your belle?

You lucky, lucky bastard. *click*
(daizi last tried to escape on, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 10:42, closed)

Big Click
Bloody good post, it's like a broadsheet article on korean dating for the expat!
(muzzvsworld, Sat 30 Aug 2008, 5:00, closed)