A Slumdog Valentine

*Disclaimer - If you thought last week's entry was long, this one's even longer. So read this if you have nothing to do or are taking a long dump. And it's kind of all over the place so please, bear with me*


So, in light of valentine's day, being single, and just having watched Slumdog Millionaire, I was inspired to write this blog entry that I'm sure will be embarrassing, revealing, but mostly just sad. I might call it a "healthy exercise in reflecting on my love life", but for you, the reader, go ahead and feel free to call me "whiny" or "emo", if you want. It's actually kind of funny... I don't know WHY I'm writing at all, but I just feel that I should. But yeah, as you read, you may feel like laughing but at the same time feeling that you shouldn't. If yo ufeel this way, just react freely... I myself don't know whether to be sad for myself, laugh at my self or whatever.

So last night, I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire. After all the hype, hoopla and hollering about the movie, I would say I was fairly impressed by the movie. On a scale of 1 to 10, the hype built it up to about a 9.5, but for me, I would rate it at about 9.0... definitely a great movie, but nothing that permanently/amazingly moved me. But yeah, moving on, lest this post becomes a movie review... what I was getting at was the story of the movie, which I would say is the love story between Jamal and Latika. Basically through all the plotlines (Who Wants to be a Millionaire, flashbacks, etc) is the central plotline of Jamal looking and chasing Latika. If any of you are fobby enough to get the reference (and I hope you do), essentially Jamal was Latika's "Flowerpot" or as Alex would put it, "Hwabun".

The reason why I mention this part of the movie is that, insofar as the love story is the crux of the movie, I was rather unmoved by it. Normally, love stories like these would definitely get me, and I would really fall in love with the premises. Normally, I'd be the guy that would be a sucker for these hopeful, if not idealistic, plotlines. I don't know why this change occurred, but I can definitely say it's occurred just recently, which brings me to my next thoughts on the current status of things as well as a reflection of my overall approach/thoughts when it comes to love life/girls.

So I mentioned previously that several friends, fellow seniors, whatever you want to call them, have entered into relationships in recent times. And previously, I wrote about how I was simply happy for them, excited to see great Christ-centered relationships blossoming and that it had no bearing on my personal well-being and whatnot. For some reason, nowadays, I feel differenlty about it. Not that I'm beginning to be jealous of them or antagonistic towards them, but the urgency of the times have been getting to me. Growing up through junior high and high school, all I heard was about how many people's significant others were their "high school sweethearts". Going through college the last 4 years, I heard about how even more people, if not in high school, definitely meet their sweethearts in college. But here I am, 3 months away from graduation, and facing my next part of life, the post-college, unemployed life, that promises little, if any, chances to meet someone. As I enter my 20s, having been single the entire way through, I can't help but wonder how God will eventually bring me to marriage. Having been single and never the one someone's had "feelings for", I don't know how I'm going to get married. I've been so accustomed to this way of life that it's like, I'd be surprised at this point if I WERE to meet someone. Now, I don't want anyone to take from what I've written so far to be a sign of my being desperate or going e-harmony, but these are things to take note of. College is a place where, for 4 years, you're surrounded by peers. Post college is a place where, for however long, you're studying/working/looking for jobs either living on your own or living back home. As I'm in between the two, I'm not sure what to feel about my relationship status at this point in time. But I guess all I can do is do as Asaph in Psalm 77, and in times of uncertainties just appeal to what God has done in the past.

For so long, I've always desired a girlfriend. To be sure, my reasons and motives have evolved and matured throughout my life. On one level, it's simple why I have this desire: I've been single all my life. On one level, at the risk of sounding sappy, I do desire that physical companionship: holding hands, hugging, etc. On a deeper level, I do desire that spiritual companionship as well. Obviously all these things come from my speculations, and not experience. But still, the fact that I could be with someone that would be there for me, and I for them, rain or shine, is something that captivates me. But therein may lie the rub: am I more captivated by the concept or the actual person? And that's a genuine issue I've encountered in recent years.

If I had to describe the history of my love life, I would describe it with a single analogy: it's like a lifetime constipation. Essentially, in both this analogy and my love life, it's been the same story of me pushing and trying hard to no avail. It's a delicate balance. On the one hand, I don't want to be crazy and be a girl-chaser, but on the other hand, I don't want to be stupid and lazy and say to myself "God will provide!" and do nothing about it. I mean, perhaps this reason is exactly why I've been single all my life. It's definitely possible that all these endeavors and whatnot have always come within the framework of my selfish desires for companionship, rather than from a genuine desire to glorify God through a healthy, pure and spiritual relationship. It used to be worse actually. In the past, in approaching girls, I definitely used to have a "pre-screening" concept built in where I would approach (or not) or show interest (or not) purely depending on my attraction to them. On a sillier level, my first impressions when meeting a girl for the first time would always relate to whether or not I saw them as GF material. The funniest and most pathetic part of all this, in my opinion, is that I'm making it seem like I have such a detailed process and even a line of people who I would think would be a possible GF, and yet I have nothing to show for it except rhetoric and excuses. The worst part about all this is that this chase for a GF I've been on, up until the last month or two, has definitely damaged, if not broken, friendships I've had with people... Out of my selfish desires for a GF, I've often neglected what's proper and good for the girls I've encountered in the past and only regarded what I've wanted. This very fact has been the sole cause in my decision to stop chasing and letting God will me. Honestly, sometimes I would act as if KCM stood for "Korean Chicks for Me", judging by my conduct in the past. But yeah, because of recent sour experiences that broke the last straw, I've realized how detrimental my bad habits in this area of life has been to my friendships with these people, my walk with God and my own personal satisfaction. In concluding my thoughts here, it wasn't me saying "okay, I don't want a GF anymore", but rather relenting, "I do want it to happen, but only out of God's will and good timing". As Pastor Mike mentioned this past Thursday at Sister's Appreciation Night, the sisters are ALL daughters of God, so who am I to decide who is and isn't "worthy" of befriending?

Let's explore my history with girls. (It will ironically be a long history, albeit full of failures). And don't ask me why I seem to remember every failure at relationships... I just do. Let's break it down by school levels, starting with elementary school. (And no, I will not name names). In 2nd grade, well, I had just moved from Korea, so I couldn't even tell a girl I liked her, even if I wanted to. So epic fail for my love life started immediately. In 3rd grade, the only way I could communicate with the girl that I liked was by passing post-it notes during class, and lining up next to her at the handball courts, and even then, I was just too shy to do anything. In 4th grade, I actually sat by the girl that I liked, and although I tried to play it off as a joke (quite unconvincingly, might I add), my accidental farting (it was like a subwoofer) in class was my undoing in my chances with this girl. In 5th and 6th grade, I think I liked the same girl. I was actually, relatively speaking, pretty successful. After working hard, hoping for the best and asking her friends to put in a good word for me, she said that if there were a dance at the science camp we'd be going to during 6th grade, she would go with me, albeit just as friends. But yeah, there ended up being no dance, and she ended up dating another guy in junior high the next year.

Speaking of junior high, it was a peculiar time. Relationships at this juncture consisted of maybe "dating" once a month, but mostly consisted of two kids liking each other, holding hands and the guy walking the girl to class. But you know what? I wanted that, and wanted to participate it all that, I'll admit it. But yeah, through junior high, there was this one girl I liked. She was in my homeroom both years. 7th grade was about getting to know her, and 8th grade was when I went for the jugular, so to speak, and asked her "out". A phone conversation later that night resulted in my first success when she said "let's give it (a relationship) a try". But as is often the case with my life, there was a quick about-face the next day when she changed her mind. After this, there was a random love letter in my locker that, to this day, I still don't know whether or not it was a joke or serious. One thing is for sure... I, quite sadly, kept that love note in my wallet for the next 3 years. I still think, to this day, it was one of the most pathetic things I have done in my life. But yeah, junior high ended with the junior high "prom". My friends and I all, obviously, went stag. I think the junior high prom culminated with my friends and I sitting at the tables in the auditorium watching all the couples dance to O-Town's "All or Nothing". We then proceeded to ditch the dance to go play Diablo II and Counter Strike at "The Pit", our local PC Bang at the time.

High school was a place where the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Freshman year, I obviously, liked yet another girl. I forgot what class she was in... all I remember was this was right around the time when my flirting, for some reason, started to express itself in forms of teasing, making fun, etc, a style which I'm still trying to change to this very day. Quite uncharacteristic of myself, I actually boldly asked her to homecoming that year... I don't know if her excuse was truthful or not, but she said she would go but she had prior engagements for homecoming night. And I don't know if this was her intention or not, but when I asked for her screen name (AIM used to be even bigger back in the day), she gave me her screen name except the part that was supposed to be "krn" was replaced with "azn"... (I miss the days of stereotypical screen names). Anyways, this endeavor ran its course when I committed the ultimate "sin", so to speak, of when I declared my feelings to her ONLINE. I don't even need to describe what the result of that was. Sophomore year was another year, but another chance. This new girl was in my history class, and she was very cute and very nice. The year before, freshmen year, she had dated a guy whom I always dismissed as a prettyboy/player type, and quite frankly, whom I was glad she no longer dated. But yeah, we began talking and getting to know each other and obviously the same cycle started again... except this time, the result was actually positive, at least initially. In fact, during my "courtship", if you will, one of her friends messaged me on AIM and told me how much she reciprocated my feelings. Of course, this only served to lead me astray, enlarge my hubris and thereby make my fall that much more tragic. But anyways, that year, my sophomore year, which was 2002 or 2003, was when the first Spider-Man movie came out. I asked her out to see the movie and she said yes. I bought her flowers and later that same day, I went to go buy the tickets to the movie on presale. On the day of, I was chilling with some of my junior high friends and for some reason, she wasn't giving me a call that she said she would make. A couple of hours passed and still no call. After trying to reach her countless times, her "cousin" answered and simply told me she couldn't go anymore on the date. I still have no idea who any of these people were, but yeah, that's what happened. I guess you could say that I went from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. But yeah, essentially I stopped talking to her for over a year out of bitterness/immaturity, but we eventually made peace. I've gone on since that point to merely writing about these things in blogs and still festering in the same old, same old. I believe she's gone on since to become hotter, more popular and even a part time model. Good for her! But yeah, my next year, junior year, believe it or not, was one rare year in which there was no interest. It was a pretty lackluster year for the most part. Senior year was like that too, although my 1.5 years of peace & quiet in between sophomore year and high school prom was shattered by what transpired in the weeks leading up to my senior prom (which I did NOT attend). Basically the short story is that I asked one girl to prom already only because the girl I REALLY wanted to ask had been asked by someone else. The latter rejected the guy that asked her. Her friends told me to ask her in light of the fact that she would go with me to prom if I asked her. I then had my friend go to prom with the girl I originally asked. Now at this point, I, being the clueless moron that I was, and to a lesser extent, still am, took this girl's (and I'm referring at this point and beyond, exclusively the girl I actually wanted to go with) willingness to go to prom with me to mean, somehow, that she liked me. Leave it up to me to take an ideal situation and totally destroy it, haha. Anyways, what happened was I bought her flowers to give to her the next school day, but the only issue was that in between those two events (flowers and school next day), I found out from her friend that she would/could no longer go to prom. After giving her the flowers the next day amidst many good natured, but uninformed "awws" and "congratulations", I gave her a few phone calls, which in retrospect, that I agree was a little too much, freaky, obsessive, scary... which is exactly what she told our mutual friend, who then relayed this revelation to me, to more or less, keep my distance. Anyways, since these events, I have not talked to this girl.

Now, as for my college endeavors, I'm going to be even more generic about it. But before I get into it, I hope the 2-3 people that are reading it don't think of this as me ranting, or God forbid, slandering against anyone. Although implicit, I hope it's clear that I'm trying to, rather sardonically, reflect on my "love" life and remark at all its ups and downs, with a special emphasis on the latter. But continuing on, I wanted to note how it was college that began to mark a change in why I was interested in that all precious female companionship. Simply put, I grew up. As I entered college, I had grown out of that innocent, shy boyhood crushes that I experienced in elementary school, and also grown out (for the most part ) of that holding hands/superficiality that I sought after in junior high and high school. Entering into college, joining KCM, and eventually returning to church and in effect, rediscovering my walk with God, I began to see girls not for these former misconceptions which I distanced myself from, but rather for a deeper, spiritual connection. It's no surprise that the couple of girls I have been interested in college couldn't be more different from the girls I was involved with before college... but it's also no surprise that my bad luck would continue in college. My first year, freshman year, it was at Frosh accountability where I met an awesome sister. Mature, strong and attractive, she stood out to me in a way where no other girl had in my mind at that point. However, this fairy tale ended before it could began when I found out soon after that she was already dating someone, older. My sophomore year was uneventful. But last year, my junior year, was anything BUT uneventful. I first met "her" at the first general meeting of the school year, and for the most part, she wasn't anything but a new face, a new acquaintance, etc. But yeah, one day, probably in September or early October, I bumped into her on Trousdale. It was about 4 pm and we started making somewhat of a smalltalk. That smalltalk on Trousdale went on for almost about 2 hours. Then afterwards, we went to eat/talk at EVK till 10 pm, closing time. Eventually, when we hung out once more, and as I was dropping her off, I asked her out, to which she said yes. Now bear with me the monumentality of this moment. History had shown that normal responses to my asking someone out had usually been some variant of "no" or "sorry, but...". With my lack of experience and just general moronicness (*salutes* General Moronicness!), I blew up her simple "yes" to mean so much more than that. Our first hang out, she kept reiterating about defining things, approaching things in relation to finding out whether a relationship was possible, etc, etc. Obviously, had I been any normal person, I could have saved a lot of trouble and embarrassment by simply agreeing with her and replying "oh yes, let's just let things happen and we'll see if a relationship is somewhere we'll head towards". Obviously, I was anything but a normal/sane person. I thought, by virtue of her saying "yes", I had already finished, that we were something, when in reality, all she said "yes" to was trying to see if we had a chance at becoming something. This was the experience in which I had to ask to hold hands, and other things that should go unstated. But yeah, needless to say, this miscommunication and moronic assumptions on my part ended in failure, obviously, and regrettably a damaged friendship. That was about it for junior year. However, I'm ashamed to admit that even to this school year, my senior year, I still have another sour experience to frown about. I met girl at KCM chapel. I met her again at UR. I start having awesome/deep/long conversations on AIM and start getting the wrong idea. We hung out at the local mall. I visit her once more when her school starts. But one wrong move built on completely unfounded assumptions on my part just ruined everything. In my, to be blunt, selfish quest for a relationship, it totally dawned on me that I should have been looking for ways to glorify God with the friendship that was always there rather than trying to turn it into a relationship that maybe wasn't meant to be.

But yeah, getting back to my earlier points: I'm not gonna lie... I'm very bad with females, and even worse with relationships. Do anything out of the norm, and I'll get the wrong idea. My heart will jump on anything and anyone that shows any sort of interest or compassion. In fact, I think much of my endeavors, and consequent failures, have come from the fact that I, out of desperation or whatever, will take things out of context or read into things too much. Honestly, this bad habit makes me disgusted with myself. If any girl starts showing any closeness, flirtation or whatever kind of interest, I will take off and draw a million conclusions, of which ALL are unjustified, unfounded or exaggerations, at best. Maybe I should move into a monastery. But yeah, I don't know anything about DTRing, probabaly because I've never reached that stage. In my lack of experience, but mostly awkwardness, I've had to ask if it was okay to hold hands. Whatever implicit aspects or nuances of dating or whatever that should remain unstated; I've either blurted out or even remain unaware of. For me, I still have trouble differentiating between dating, seeing someone, and being in a relationship. It's all too confusing and makes things even harder for me. I've always thought things were simpler: two people like each other, they link up, and progress from there. All these institutional and formal concepts an dpractices are confusing and for me, I feel like they cloud what should be the driving force in relationships. On the other hand, maybe when you're in the situation/relationship, all these "concepts and practices" aren't rigid, but occur naturally. On another note, it's really frustrating when I start trying harder just because of my level of attraction to someone, instead of letting these friendships come naturally. So as a result when I try too hard, I end up feeling like I lied to myself and feel like a fool. It's funny how unoriginal/limited my daydreams are. I daydream about either having a GF or being an NBA superstar... sadly nothing else. But yeah, I really am bad with these relationship type deals. i don't really know how to go about making things happen. I mean, are things so natural that going out, entering a realtionship and all that jazz all occur naturally? Or does it start with me trying to do things and over time it snowballing into something concrete? And being the guy, the agressor, the initiator, etc, makes things even tougher, especially when you're a dude like me: a dude that's unsure, unexperienced, clumsy, awkward, but, just to balance things out, a dude who's also earnest and hopefully genuine. I don't know. I don't know how to go about doing anything; I don't ahve experience to bank on, and I'm graduating in mere months. What am I supposed to do?

In reflecting on my experiences with the feamle half of the human race as well as Pastor Mike's recent sermon on 1 Tim 5:1-2, I've realized how fleeting, deceitful and displeasing my actions, intentions and words are and have become to myself, friends, family and God. I feel as though my shutting up would do more good than if I kept talking. Honestly, looking at my history of failures with girls, there are more recurring themes beyond just rejection. There are repeating themes of myselfishness and superficiality in thinking with the eyes first, there is the repeating theme of my selfishness for a relationship stunting the growth or even detroying burgeoning friendships, and there is the theme of my feeling all kinds of stupid. Just when I thought I meant what I said, and said what I meant, God has revealed yet again the wickedness that is my heart. I think Isaiah put it best when he said:

"Woe is me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips..." (Isaiah 6:5)

- BH