Tell me you love me

Rarely a day passes when I don't see a pair of young Koreans decked out in matching couples garb: each one sporting a t-shirt with half a heart on it, or with the very same logo and design. The lingerie shops on every corner feature displays of matching couples underwear, the tight boxer briefs just as lacy, pink or leopard-patterned as the bra and panties intended for the female half of the couple. (It's worth noting that Koreans don't believe homosexuality exists in their country.) Downtown areas have contrived date spots -- little cafes with pink walls, sheer ribbons, flowers everywhere, sometimes even seats suspended from the ceiling like porch swings. Every advertisement shows pictures of a happy couple. Shows following stories of heart-wrenching, undying love at first sight are the most popular on TV. My single 28-year-old co-workers constantly lament their lack of boyfriends. When i admitted to being single at a work dinner, the entire table of teachers raised their glasses to the hope that one day, I might find a boyfriend.

In short, Korea is obsessed with romance and all of it must be serious and all about love. At times I can be a little too easily intrigued, too. So here are my top 5 ridiculous Korean dating adventures:

5. Jun Chan: One weekend evening I was walking by myself to meet some friends when I noticed a cute Korean boy keeping pace with me. I looked over and he said "hi." We chatted briefly and I asked where he was going: "I'm following you to ask for your number." I laughed and gave it to him. We went for dinner the next day. I showed up late to find him wearing a backpack and holding an English textbook. "I studied all day so I could talk to you," he said. I grinned. We went to the restaurant and struggled through conversation in his admittedly not so good English. No love connection because we could barely speak to each other, but his constant looking up words in his book and his phone dictionary (Korean-English dictionaries come standard on just about every phone here) and his assertions that he was "very gentleman" each time he filled my water glass was so adorable that I couldn't stop smiling. He said again and again that I was beautiful and he had plans to tell me funny stories next time. He even walked me home all the way across the neighborhood. But then he never called me again. I guess that Korean love obsession means you pull out all the stops, even when you're not feeling it.

4. P: This boy will remain semi-anonymous because, though things didn't work out between us, he's a nice guy who doesn't deserve to be mocked. But the story's too funny not to tell. One weekend when I'd been seeing P for a couple weeks we went to a baseball game in Gwangju with a group of friends. Out at the bar he decided to get as drunk as possible with his best friends. I laughed along, but got more and more annoyed. That annoyance reached a breaking point when the three of them dropped their pants in the street and started smashing signs and jumping on cars. In their underwear. Mortified and unsure of what to do, I took off running toward the hotel through the crowds of Koreans wandering Gwangju's downtown shopping and partying area. P, holding up and periodically dropping his pants, chased me, occasionally pausing to high-five a cheering spectator, until he caught up with me in front of a convenience store and tackled me to the pavement.

3. Sung Gyung: The lead-up to the first Korea match in The World Cup was a whirlwind. We spent the afternoon running from one social commitment to the next, all the while searching out t-shirts and light-up horns to make sure we'd fit in with the cheering crowds. By the time we made our way to Longlife to watch the kickoff the bar was packed to brimming with chanting, flag-waving fans, but fortunately, Sung Gyung and two of his friends were nice enough to share their table with us. We yelled, we laughed, we high-fived, we jumped with joy as Korea crushed Greece 2-0. Then we went to noraebang where Sung Gyung charmed me by serenading me with my favorite BigBang song. He wandered off plastered, but texted me how much he liked me. I had to ask Wendy multiple times before I could remember his name, but I rounded out the night thinking he was alright and hoping to see him again. Then began the texting. Seven or eight times a day. Always in poor to incomprehensible English. Often consisting exclusively of confessions of love and how much he missed me. In the most recent message he told me to teach him English and cook him dinner. Ha. I don't cook for anyone.

2. Cheol Hoon: One Friday night I went out to Wabar for a drink with some friends. I thought I was just hanging out and rounding out the night with some noraebang, but actually I'd caught the attention of a neighboring Korean man in his late twenties. The next night I was out late watching the US team get knocked out of The World Cup at Soyouki, and a waiter approached me with a note in decent English. It contained a phone number and a request that I call. I caved to curiosity and sent out a text introducing myself and asking my admirer's name. "I know your name is Julie," he replied. "I saw you Friday night and I heard it." He then told me he'd written the note on Friday but been too shy to give it to me. Then he spotted me on Saturday and followed me into Soyouki, waited an hour to catch me alone, and finally gave up and passed the note to a waiter. Curious, flattered and only slightly creeped out, I agreed to meet him in hopes that someone so interested might also be interesting. And from the second I saw him, I knew he was, but it was too late to flee since he'd seen me, too. Cheol Hoon was carrying a shiny black leather purse and had his hair blown out into a gelled puff around his head. He was wearing an ill-fitting white t-shirt emblazoned with a metallic gold heart, a powder blue blazer and caramel and white patterned bowling shoes. We ran out of things to say to each other after about 10 minutes, but he did not find this discouraging. Instead, after we awkwardly sipped our tea for awhile he took me to a restaurant where he ordered two portions of everything and then refused to eat any of it. I was killing time until my friends finished work and shamelessly taking advantage of the free food, so we rounded out the evening at a bar with his friend who spoke more English than Cheol Hoon but used it almost exclusively to hint that my date should quickly become my boyfriend.

1. Jayden: I met the boy who deserves the top spot at a nightclub in Gwangju about a month after I arrived in Korea. We hit it off at the club so well that he asked for my phone number even though I was returning to Yeosu and he was headed back to university in Seoul at the end of the weekend. For the next few weeks he called or texted me every day -- lavishing an as of yet unknown level of attention on me. Sometimes too much. I remember one night he called me again and again at 3 a.m. until I picked up the phone, all because he'd had a dream that I killed myself because I missed him so badly, and he had to make sure it wasn't true. I did not heed this warning of unwanted intensity to come. About a month after we'd met, when I'd seen him just once in the interim, I headed up to Seoul with a group of friends and made plans to meet up with Jayden. I took the subway across the city alone in a cute new dress, and he met me outside. He took me to a restaurant that served huge, bubbling pots of seafood soup that spat bits of bright orange liquid all over the tables, and all over my new dress. While there he tricked me into eating a crunchy/chewy fish brain that squirted salty fluid into my mouth with each bite. Then we went to a cafe where he fed me each bite of fruit off his chopsticks, despite an uncomfortable audience. Finally, he took me to a bar where he looked deep into my eyes and uttered some of the most ridiculous words I've ever heard from a man I barely knew: "Julie, tell me you love me."

**Disclaimer: like all who date, I do crazy things sometimes, too. But since this is my blog and they're embarrassing, my silly moments are not included in this list.