Dear fellow travellers,
I have noticed recently, well, maybe not that recently, that I have a condition when it comes to emotions. I would call it an allergic reaction to romantic expressions.
The rest of my life looks fine on paper. I am good with words. I connect dots between different subjects and turn them into jokes or new expressions. They are quirky, sometimes outrageous, mostly fun. I express gratitude easily. I am amicable and loving towards close friends and acquaintances, and I have no problem telling my family that I love them. I feel things; I say them.
However.
When it comes to love interests, I speak corporate.
The Journal Entry
Recently I met someone I loved talking to. There was some connection. I found her charming, and I could see exactly what her weakness was when it came to relationships. I looked at it and thought, oh, that’s interesting, but that could be manageable.
I said nothing to her. My journal said plenty. This is what I wrote:
Great investment value. Her weakness is weirdly stimulating my niche market.
Though not sure if she knows that I might be in her target market audience.
It would be best if this works out as inbound turnout.
I might not win the bidding, but I need to bid first to win.
I read it back the next morning and laughed, because it is funny. Then I stopped laughing, because there is no heartbeat anywhere in that entry.
Reading the Room
A few days earlier, a friend had told me, “I feel like you are reading the room too much.” (눈치를 본다.)
I have constantly been told in the past that I had no nunchi(눈치) at all, so I wasn’t sure whether to take this as a compliment. She meant that I look anxious about how others perceive me. I explained that I don’t care about people I don’t care about, and that I care a great deal about how the people I care about think of me. I told her I don’t want to be hated.
She listened. Then she said, “Why on earth would you think that? That’s sad.”
I told her, “Well, this could come from what my ex told me.” Before she left, my ex had said: Your friends do not like you. They are just putting up with you.
The longer I looked at that sentence, the older it got.
Trauma comes from the same place every time. The shapes change and the original sentences stay.
I am not worthy of love. I want to be welcomed. I want to be chosen.
Being hated, for me, has always meant not being chosen.
Borrowed Vocabulary
I can tell you which words I avoid, because I have been avoiding them for years.
When I was younger, I fitted what I felt into a borrowed language. People said you have a “crush” on someone when you feel something, so I borrowed the word and used it, even though it never described what was going on inside me. Usually what I felt was less than that word suggests. I assumed this was a human custom, like translating from one language into another. You don’t have the exact word, so you use the closest one on offer and hope the meaning survives the trip.
“Fall in love” felt like far too much. In Korean culture, people often say “I love you” when they start dating, and sometimes they expect you to say it back. But come on. I don’t know you that well yet. I do not want to carry your burden or feel responsible for you at this stage.
Every big word is a request to be chosen, and a request can be turned down. I pick words small enough to survive a no.
The smallest one I found is “interest.”
Before my ex and I started dating, back when we were in a situationship, I told her I was interested in her. I pretended to be drunk. I was sober. I set up an escape route.
I meant curiosity, the kind that says: I want to know more about you. A door left open. I was testing the temperature of something I hadn’t yet decided about.
She understood it as a confession.
It was, in retrospect, the first translation problem. The same words, two different buildings constructed from them. Later, when we were dating, she told me I had confessed first. I told her it was not a confession at all. It became the most heated debate of the relationship: who fell first.
The Box
That escape route grew into something larger.
When I like someone, I hesitate. I know I am interested. What I wonder is whether my interest, my so-called “love,” would be a nuisance. I haven’t approached the person yet. I haven’t even decided whether I want to get to know them, and I already treat the feeling as a disease they would want to get away from. My positive feelings towards one person become influenza. Am I even allowed to like someone?
So I pack how I feel into a big beige cardboard box. I set up boundaries. I decide not to invest my feelings. I might get hurt, yes, and when feelings are translated into unromantic corporate language, they feel manageable. I get to be “professional” and make the right choices according to logical sense.
The box has a cost, and other people pay it. I once dated someone for a week. I took a step back when I felt I had made a hasty choice, and I told her we shouldn’t call each other “girlfriend” yet. I said I would like to get to know her more before I made the choice. She did not take the rejection well.
So I told her to “have more self-confidence,” the way you give a pat on the shoulder to a junior colleague. I thought I was cheering her up. She heard another rejection. It didn’t work out in the end.
I see it now. I left before she had the chance to decide about me. It was the same escape route I built the night I told my ex I was interested, and I only used it faster.
Corporate language did that. I handed her a performance review while she was waiting for a feeling.
The box only comes off when somebody has chosen me completely. With my ex, it did. She had to unpack it for some time, and once it was open, I was hopelessly romantic. I babytalked. I overused the word “destiny.” I do not say things I don’t believe, and I completely believed in destiny. Everything I had stored in the box came out at once.
I have no middle. The box is on or it is off. I am a professional, or I am a person who says “destiny” with a straight face. I haven’t found the setting in between.
In my last letter, I wrote about removing myself from a friend’s list before she could decide. The box does the same job in romance. I file myself under “professional” before anyone has the chance to not pick me.
So yes. I am allergic to romantic language.
I might not win the bidding. My journal is right about one thing, though: nobody wins a bid they never place. I have not placed one yet.
I’ll circle back.
Emotionally yours (regards, in corporate),
Suinny
From home, where the beige box is still on the shelf
P.S. — If you have ever described someone you liked as “a good colleague” to avoid the word you meant, reply to this letter. I will keep the conversation strictly professional.