The Teen Beat Goes On

Eeeek! Squeal! Aaaaack!

Aaaaaaand... KB has finally written me back.

And it only took two months!

It just goes to show ya that life has a wicked sense of humor. Because yesterday, if I hadn't updated about the Tuesday Night O' Family Fun, I would have written about meeting British Man's Perfect Wife and realizing that hey, I don't actually hate her, and moreover, I've stopped looking at every pretty Korean woman with green lasers shooting out of my eyes, because I'm over KB. Over him!

Okay, not completely and totally I'd-shut-the-door-in-his-face-if-he-showed-up-cuz-I'm-SO-over-him kind of over him, but you know, your basic kind of "it was sweet and it was three months ago, and time to move on." No more walking down the streets of Shinchon feeling like the landscape was littered with memories, each of which dug little pincer-like claws into my heart. No more reading and rereading the last email, looking up at the heavens, and asking silently, "Why? Why? Why no response for five days/3 weeks/a month and a half? Why?" No more sitting in the subway and looking over the text messages that sum up the five-day fling and sighing heavily. And most tellingly, no more looking at pretty Korean women with hatred, wondering if the woman KB had fallen for shared any of the same characteristics.

I met Rather Handsome British Man's wife yesterday night when she came to taekwondo. It was sort of through my meddlesome ways that she was there; a couple weeks ago, I unknowingly let the cat out of the bag about RHBM's February marriage. It wasn't a secret, exactly, but RHBM and wife had kept it hush hush so as to try to keep the guest count down (even so, 420 people showed up where only 400 had RSVP'd yes). Well, in the course of a conversation about giving good memories to the foreign students in the class to entice them to come back to Korea, I absently mentioned to our taekwondo master that RHBM was likely to come back to Korea anyway, since his wife was Korean.

Our taekwondo master being the effusive good fellow that he is, put on a display of mock outrage and taking offense. I think he was genuinely just sorry about not having the chance to congratulate RHBM, but since RHBM has been taking lessons for about four years, it also contained a tinge of real indignation.

In any case, one thing led to another, and the master insisted that RHBM invite everyone over for drinks, so that they could all celebrate his marriage. So RHBM's wife showed up last night as a courtesy call, and I met her.

I mentioned before that RHBM met his wife in class, when he was her student. (She was teaching foreigners Korean.) He mentioned something about her growing up all over the world as her father was transferred from place to place, so I suspect that she's part of the Korean nobility, as it were -- her father is probably an executive at one of the huge conglomerates, and she can speak English and Korean fluently (English with a barely discernible and unplaceable accent), so Korea is basically her playground.

Anyhoo. I introduced myself as knowing RHBM from language school, she said she'd heard a lot about me, I apologized for not keeping my mouth shut, she laughed about it and suggested I help her cook for the gathering as punishment, I said that would be punishing for others as well as for me, and blabbity blah blah, pleasant small talk. She is this perfect, delicate doll of a woman, big eyes and long hair and red high-heeled sandals and all, but with a charming openness. I rather liked her. I'm happy for them. And I didn't feel a twinge of resentment.

I DO so like it when I'm not bitter.