A friend who recently moved back to the US from Seoul said that when trying to figure out Korean men, just subtract 13 from their age and that is their “US dating age”. So a guy 28 there is like dating a 15 year old here. What’s your opinion?
Okay. As per usual, when I get these questions, I have a lot of questions in return.
Like, first of all, why do you need to figure out Korean men? I’m assuming you live in the US. Are you planning to move to Korea? Bottom line, people who need to “figure out” other races without living within a culture dominated by that race, especially when it comes to dating, skeeve me.
Second of all, do you know that I’m dating a Korean man? And if you do, did you not stop to think that maybe this question would be offensive? Did you mean to imply that I like to date men who have a child’s mind?
There’s really nothing about this question that I understand, least of all the motive behind asking it. But what I have to say is this: maybe your friend has really shit taste. Or maybe she has kind of a childish mindset, herself, when it comes to digesting people who are, on the surface, different from her. Maybe her only way to cope with the cultural differences was to classify the men she was dating as simple minded. Maybe she didn’t realize that, in Korea, within Korean culture, we are the ones who make mistakes and do things “wrong”.
I don’t know what else to say. I know I make a lot of good-natured jokes at Busan’s expense from time to time, but he’s not a child. Not in the least. He went through an army service that would’ve made most of the guys I went to university with cry. He holds down a job working hours that I can’t imagine ever tolerating, and he does it without complaint. He sends money home to help take care of his family. And within our personal relationship, he manages to handle me and my neuroses in such a manner that I know I can rely on him in a way that I haven’t ever been able to with any other man before. He’s not a child. He’s a man. And he’s as Korean as they come.
And that’s all I know to say.
