I'm a Loser, Baby, So...

Just came back from my evening constitutional around Olympic Park (5 rabbits spied tonight). I've taken to "marking" someone to follow around the path, as it helps me keep up a reasonable pace, and also makes me feel a little safer. Tonight, though, I think I scared the guy -- an older gent of probably 40 or 50, he turned around and looked at me a few times during the 30 minutes I was following him. I'm sorry, mister! I'm not a stalker, I swear!

Those endorphins kicking in are really very helpful, especially since right before I started walking, I felt like a total loser. Determined not to spend yet another Friday night alone at the movies, I called Jason, the Yale pre-junior, at my language program, to see if he wanted to do something tomorrow night. Okay, yes, he is 20, but it was fun to go bowling with him and his friends a few months back, and I was determined to have plans, see? Determined.

So this is how the conversation went:
Me: Hi, Jason? It's Helen from Sogang.
Junior: (laconically) Oh, hey. How's it going?
(Sounds of busyness in background.)
Me: Pretty good, thanks, how are you? Is this a bad time?
Junior: Well, uh... noooo, uh, it depends. What's up?
Me: I wanted to see if you wanted to do something tomorrow night.
Junior: Well, uh... what did you have in mind?
Me: (already feeling embarrassed) Um, dinner?
Junior: Well, I ... yeah, I kind of do this Bible study with my church group on Friday nights, so I don't know when that will be over. Maybe another time?
Me: Sure, okay. Do you want to set a time now, or just...?
Junior: Uh, yeah, we can set a time now. When are you free?
Me: It's kind of tough for me to get to Shinchon during the week, but the weekends are okay.
Junior: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I work in Yangjae, so it takes an hour to get back to Shinchon...
Junior: Yeah, okay... uh, well, I'm free on Monday.. wait, I think. Uh... yeah, I'm not the most organized person.
Me: (starting to laugh at the absurdity) I'm starting to see that.
Junior: Yeah, uh, I don't know...
Me: Well, hey, if you have some time free, just give me a call, okay?
Junior: Yeah, okay, good.
Me: Okay, bye.
Junior: Bye.

Okay, perhaps doesn't seem as absurd here as it felt at the time, but you understand that I'm really not used to reaching out and making friends. So I had to, like, psyche myself up to call, and then to be turned down by a 20-year-old, and then be turned down again when I try to make future plans -- oh yeah, baby, I felt like a BIG time loser.

Losah!!!

Well, after that roaring success, I immediately called someone else, the giant (6'5") German guy who I used to live with in my old boarding house, and invited him and his girlfriend out for dinner tomorrow night. Still felt like a losah, so I went for a walk, reminding myself that a REAL losah stays at home and waits for someone to call her, and when no one does, re-reads Bridget Jones for the 55th time.

I'm almost convinced.

And I'm learning: Next time, have plans in mind when you invite the person, and try not to call someone you haven't spoken to in several weeks if you don't want to: (1) spook them/cause them to think you're a loser/cause them to think you're desperate, and subsequently (2) cause yourself to think you are, in fact, a loser.

I've been reminded, of late, of the saying, "Wherever you go, there you are." Can't escape yourself, right. But I feel like I never really got it before this sojourn. It is such a glazed-eye truism that you learn about yourself when you travel, but there you go. And what lesson might I be speaking of? Well, if you're interested, it's that I am weird. Yes, I know this comes as a total shock, but it's time that you all knew the truth: I'm a total weirdo. I do not know how to relate to people, and the more I don't interact with people, the weirder I become (please reference my senior year in college, when I slowly grew more and more petrified of going into the dining hall because people might see me and think stuff about me).

You don't believe it, eh? I'm not talking about regular shyness here. Yes, I am used to keeping still and having other people make the overtures of friendship. It's so easy to wait for other people to make the move, and if they don't, then just to sit at home. I'm so in awe of people like Fearless T, the Neener, and the Ringleted One: when they decide they want to be friends with someone, they just walk up to them and start talking and before you know it, they're on for some fabulous event that very weekend.

I do realize that social skills, especially for naturally shy (me!) and introverted (me!) people, are something you learn, and that only by doing it over and over again do you start putting "rejections" in perspective. Do I think that just because I didn't end up successfully making plans with Jason that he rejected me; i.e., doesn't like me and is going to avoid me like the plague from now on? Well, no, I don't think it, but I do feel it. But this is besides the point -- my real weirdness, I think, is that I don't seem to know how to naturally progress from an acquaintance to a friendship, and so end up calling people out of the blue and spooking them. You know?

On the other hand (and I have at least 23), maybe it's all a matter of spin, as Fearless T pointed out once -- what I see and envy as natural progression is actually one person or two people having enough self confidence (or psyching themselves up enough) to say, "Hey, you wanna do something this weekend?"

Huhhhh. (sigh) It's a bit discouraging to go through another phase of "Eurgh, should I talk to This Person? What if I ask them to do something and they go away thinking I'm a total dork?" Even so, as Debbie Newberry says, "You gotta try. It's your DUTY." I hear ya.
--------------------
Something else totally unrelated to the above: Cigarettes are cheap! 2,000 won = about $1.80. How do I know? I bought some. That's right, I bought some cancer sticks. I have no defense. Just felt like a smoke.

And in other pollution-related news: On March 31, 2003, the Korean Ministry of Environment announced that Seoul has the worst air pollution of any OECD member, including notoriously polluted Rome and Mexico City. All right!