Some of my students had the assignment to "interview me" but I hadn't given them any kind of guidance as to what sort of questions they should ask. I got a lot of interesting and different sorts of questions, but the funnest one was from a girl named Jung, who asked me "Which came first, the chicken or the egg, in your opinion?" I hardly needed to hesitate: the egg, of course – it's a matter of genetics, right? I'm not sure she really understood my explanation.
Day: February 28, 2008
Caveat: No Love
"Love is not for the faint-hearted, or for the self-possessed" – I think Rumi (Persian poet) said this. Since I am both faint-hearted and not terribly self-possessed, I suppose this means that love is not for me.
Actually, it can be surprising the number times I get the question, "why aren't you married?" or its variants (such as why I'm not in a relationship, etc.). And a number of people, both Koreans and non-Koreans, seem to jump to the conclusion that I must be "looking" for a relationship, and that my coming to Korea may even have something to do with this – given the commonplace that Westerners will have "better luck" finding a significant other in Asian countries (which I definitely don't actually think is necessarily true, either).
But the facts are more complex, and the net is – I'm really NOT looking for a relationship. In fact, part of what lead me to make the decision to go off into an alien culture and go looking for new experiences was because I had reached a firm decision, last year, that I am meant to remain single. With the idea of a relationship basically ruled out, it made it easier to let go of things like "career" and "place" and just go off drifting again.
And so. "But don't you get lonely?" Of course I do. Still… I'm happier with loneliness than I have ever been in a relationship – at least over the longer term. So, it's for the best.