Personal nonsense rambling.

What a complete and utterly lovely weekend I've had. It's been a long time since I've written anything about the personal life in this blog, because it always feels a bit awkward for whatever reason now, but I'm afraid I've got little else to offer in the next couple of weeks, while work is on hold and I won't be teaching classes. So, a bit of a blow-by-blow, then. For old time's sake.

Friday night was two bottles of wine and me nervously cooking chicken and broccoli penne alfredo, which was given rave reviews, no doubt out of kindness alone. Anyway, it was eaten. I guess now's as good a time as any to give the guy a name. We'll call him Busan.

Saturday morning blended into Saturday afternoon, a bit lazy and slow with coffee and ordered-in Chinese. Finally, in the evening, the girls (Dating in Korea and It's Daejeon Darling) made it out to my humble city. We sat in watching ridiculous things on the internet, generally gossiping and cutting up while drinking soju and beer until we thought it might be best to head out around midnight.

You see, the big plan was to finally go to a host bar. Or, rather, a model bar. Which as far as I can tell is a downgraded version. But in the end, we didn't have it in our hearts this weekend. It didn't help that when we walked past, they'd installed a code-lock on the door and a CCTV camera and it all just seemed too serious and complicated. We'd all had an extremely long and fairly emotional week, and didn't need large levels of complication. We just headed to one of the more low-key foreigner bars and proceeded to mind our own damn business and continue talking just with each other. Which was going fine. Until a man with a dog approached our table and seemed taken aback when we didn't leap out of our seats, cooing. He was wise and polite and dignified enough to see that we were obviously there to keep our own company for the evening, and quickly and gracefully extracted himself from the situation. His extremely inebriated friend wasn't so quick, and, instead, stood there and got himself into hotter and hotter water.

His big opening line was to ask us how long we'd been in Korea. Three years, said Grace. Two and a half, I answered. I don't think IDD even managed to get to her answer, before he backed up and said, "I'm sorry. I asked you, 'How long have you been here?'" We repeated our answers with blank faces. "Why would you want to stay so long in a country like this?"

We all three physically drew back away from him. "Wrong table," I informed him. A stupid verbal scuffle ensued, in which he accused me of being defensive because I must a. have a Korean boyfriend and b. enjoy Korean drinking culture. I informed him that he was being offensive, and pointed out that he probably wouldn't feel very comfortable if I were to, for example, point to his girlfriend of two-and-a-half years and say, "Why would you stay with that woman for so long?" I also pointed out that we didn't seem to be the ones who had had too much to drink, in regards to his second point.

There was another stupid portion of the conversation, in which he accused Grace of not being from where she's from, and not being the ethnicity which she is. At which point she informed him that she had never been so offended by any person so many times in such a short amount of time. He finally decided it would be best if he fucked the fuck off.

We finished our pitcher quickly and got the hell out of there. But we ended up being followed down the stairs by a guy who was completely taken with IDD. She told him she was sorry, but she was with her friends for the evening, and we were leaving. He hesitated for a long time and then sulked back into the bar. We were making our way down the street outside, cracking jokes about what had just occurred, when suddenly I heard the girls behind me bust out laughing. Behind us a little way's with a face as innocent as a five-year-old child's was the same guy from the stairs, being followed hesitatingly by one of his friends. He froze in the middle of the street and stared pitifully after us once we'd turned around and noticed him. His friend approached and explained that they were very sorry, that they didn't speak English, and we all stood there in probably literally the most awkward silence I've ever experienced for a few minutes.

These guys has been in the bar in the first place because they'd come to bring a birthday cake for one of the bartenders who I know for a fact is a gold-star Good Guy, so I figured they must not be so bad. We finally gave up and told them where we were headed, and said they could join if they wanted. They went back to the other bar to get the rest of their group. It was a good night of friendly (if stilted) conversation all around, while Grace and I and the rest of the guy group all just tried to keep ourselves occupied and not make it too awkward for the couple who were sitting at the end of the table clearly not being able to communicate. Eventually, the cute bartender showed up carrying his own birthday cake, and we all ate together and had one more pitcher before telling the guys we had to head out. It was nice to sit and talk with a group of men who were completely non-aggressive, over-the-top or offensive for once. Especially this weekend.

Headed out to get samgyeopsal before heading home to bed, where we spent even more time laughing until our stomachs ached before finally falling asleep. Woke up this afternoon and fooled around for a few more hours, before deciding to try to make waffles on my new waffle iron, which was sort of a complete disaster until Grace took over. They've just gone home a couple of hours ago. But not before I texted Busan and put in a request to introduce the girls to some of his friends, who are kind. The one good thing to come out of this experience this week is that I feel like we're all just completely through putting up with garbage. We're through making excuses for men and their bad behavior and atrocious opinions. Our bullshit tolerance quotas have been met, and we're on the edge about any kind of nonsense that comes our way. Who needs it? So. We'll see how that pans out.

But the important thing is, a good weekend laughing and getting back to balanced with good friends. And fuck anybody who tries to fuck with that. I'm looking at you, Obnoxious Drunk Friend-of-the-Guy-With-a-Dog Guy.