It's 1:40am. You may be wondering what I could possibly be doing at this ungodly hour. Well after a loooonnnng day at work, I headed over to Kims Club (think Kmart) and then finally to my little studio where I planned on watching some previously downloaded tv shows. It was already 11pm when I started 30 Rock. Then the Office (a great episode, by the way) and finally, the best for last, Vampire Diaries. When all was said and done, it was 1:30am. Even though I was tired and sure that going to sleep was going to be the best solution to that problem, I wistfully distracted myself by looking up KoreanCupid.com. Yeah, internet dating. Not that I think I am anywhere near ready to actually date, but I figured it was about time I at least stuck my toes in the water. So I signed up for a free account and began to answer the multitude of questions for my profile. That's when the panic began. First of all, Koreans are obsessed with looks. I mean, in the US we are too, but there are 7 year old Korean kids who refuse chocolate because they are afraid of getting fat. But Koreans don't get fat! Seriously, this is a SKINNY county, and they are VERY prejudiced against fat people. That being said, my panic began when I realized that I didn't want to, or just plain couldn't answer some of the questions. These are questions that would not be asked on an American dating site, and if they were, they would be optional to answer.
My star sign is: I don't know and don't care
I was born in the year of the: Once again, don't know and don't care
My weight is: LOL, yeah right! You think I'm going to actually put my weight on this thing??? But there was no "no comment" option. The stress began to build in my chest. Koreans a quite harsh when it comes to weight. Any Korean girl that doesn't fit into a nie size 0 is seen as fat. Not chubby, not our pc word "overweight". Nope, they are fat. Then you get to truly fat people and the culture freaks out. I knew that any answer about the weight of my 5'2 body that was over 110 would be seen as fat. Umm....
Or even better:
My appearance is: (drumroll) the options are "very attractive", "attractive", "average", or "below average". I put average because I couldn't bring myself to answer anything else. Only a vain person would put very attractive, and only someone with sad self esteem would put below average. (Below average, isn't that a standard teachers use to judge kids on report cards) And isn't attraction different to each person anyways?? This was too much.
I finished the profile (after strategically lying about my weight!) and closed the window. That was way too much to handle. Thankfully my friend Sarah was on skype and I told her all about the Korean online dating experience. We had a good laugh. Well, if that's all it was good for, so be it!
My star sign is: I don't know and don't care
I was born in the year of the: Once again, don't know and don't care
My weight is: LOL, yeah right! You think I'm going to actually put my weight on this thing??? But there was no "no comment" option. The stress began to build in my chest. Koreans a quite harsh when it comes to weight. Any Korean girl that doesn't fit into a nie size 0 is seen as fat. Not chubby, not our pc word "overweight". Nope, they are fat. Then you get to truly fat people and the culture freaks out. I knew that any answer about the weight of my 5'2 body that was over 110 would be seen as fat. Umm....
Or even better:
My appearance is: (drumroll) the options are "very attractive", "attractive", "average", or "below average". I put average because I couldn't bring myself to answer anything else. Only a vain person would put very attractive, and only someone with sad self esteem would put below average. (Below average, isn't that a standard teachers use to judge kids on report cards) And isn't attraction different to each person anyways?? This was too much.
I finished the profile (after strategically lying about my weight!) and closed the window. That was way too much to handle. Thankfully my friend Sarah was on skype and I told her all about the Korean online dating experience. We had a good laugh. Well, if that's all it was good for, so be it!
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