I don’t even know where to begin with this…

Two days into the on-line dating thing and I’m already disturbed.  I’m only getting interest from foreign guys interested in only Korean girls and one or two really pathetic middle-aged Korean guys.

One inquiry I got was from a young, stunningly handsome Swedish Canadian kid named Henrik who wanted someone very young with long legs.  Confused, I told him I didin’t fit the bill AT ALL.  And he told me his uncle, a 42 year old photographer who’d just moved to Korea, thought I was cute (and who had a thing for short Asian women) but didn’t want to sign up because he thought on-line dating was for defective people.  So I started having some fun banter with the young guy about him pimping for his uncle and how his uncle will figure out soon enough how rough it is here at his age.

Finally, the uncle left me a message telling me he was a 41 year old science fiction writer who’d been living in Korea for 3.5 years (?) and Henrik was the son of a friend who’d just moved to Korea and was crashing at his place.  I asked for a photo and we talked a bit about being older and dating in Korea, (of which he was extremely jaded about) and then I had to tell him that, though he was intelligent and all, I just didn’t like being valued for being a short Asian (He seemed like a nice guy and the possible yellow fever disturbed me enough that I didn’t note the discrepancy highlighted in bold above). This resulted in much more disclosure from the guy, hoping I’d change my mind, because I was so different than all the other vapid girls he’d dealt with here.  He kept referring to this theory he had that all Korean girls go after is Alpha males, and it was obvious he was quite bitter about this.

Later, looking around the website I noticed a profile about a guy who was 35 (!) and a science fiction writer and who looked like a twin of this guy who I’d been talking to.  I sent him the link and he admitted it was him – residue of his old “real” profile, that he’d made up Henrik as a pseudo profile to test his theory that Korean girls only wanted to go after tall Aryan Alpha males and that his theory was stunningly correct.  He relayed the story about one such model material male he knows of who’s apparently bedded hundreds of girls from this website, and that his fake photo and profile with Henrik gets so many hits he has to clear his inbox about five times a day.  He accused me of also being an Alpha male follower, and being no different than all the other girls, because I responded differently to Henrik – of course I did – talking about someone being lame is much different than talking to the lame person in question.  Or, rather, I was discussing with this poser guy about how lame another fictitious character was.

Amazingly, the guy still wanted to keep in contact.  I didn’t reprimand him so much as have a discussion about how he is the deceit he hates, etc., and that his hostility towards women isn’t very attractive, that in his “real” profile he actually looked like an Alpha male that he resents, and that it was much nicer than the pseudo profile’s persona.  But that of course I didn’t want to pursue a relationship with someone I’ll never know is telling the truth or not.

Anyway, that’s the short story.

Even though my profile says anybody non religious from any country, I did a search to see what would happen if I specified only Koreans 35-80 and about 400 appeared, roughly half within the past year, the rest going back several years.  There were only about a dozen my age, and there were 3 guys older (one in his late 60’s – go grand dad!)  If I were to eliminate photos of men in suits, which is about a third,  of those remaining only about ten were flexible on age (most wanted girls 5 years younger than themselves) and only about six of them had paid memberships, which means contact is actually futile.

I was going to go and pay for a membership (at least one party has to have a paid membership for there to be communication) but with such a limited pool (for someone my age) it doesn’t seem worth it.  That’s a very expensive cup of coffee, and it doesn’t seem likely that any of the above would even get to that point.  And even if I did get to that point, would their minds be blown by my western ways, just like the ajosshi that rejected me for not being able to speak Korean?

This reminds me of talking to another adoptee, 29, who’s lived here for 3 years, about my predicament and she acknowledged it was a very real problem.  She bemoaned her own situation as similar, (um, not quite, but I appreciated the empathy) and that approaching 30 she’s already considered over the hill and defective for not being married.

Are we really defective?  Or are we just always out of step? I think it’s the consequences of having so many things to sort out.  But I think I’m a better person because of it.  But that accomplishment means nothing socially, and isn’t a comfort on lonely nights.