Our Story
It started with a like on Instagram.
I was sitting at my desk. On one corner lay a pile of papers waiting to be graded. On the other, a half-finished cup of coffee. I slowly leaned back in my chair, tapping a pen against my teeth, dreading the task at hand.
I heard my phone vibrate. Perfect, I thought. Any excuse not to work was a welcomed distraction. I’d be procrastinating the inevitable, but I didn’t care. I opened my drawer and pulled out my phone to investigate the buzz. It was a notification from Instagram. She had liked one of my photos.
I had posted the photo a few weeks ago, so I knew she had been looking at my profile. I wondered who she was. I didn’t recognize her name, but I clicked the profile anyways.
A beautiful girl stared back at me.
She didn’t have many photos, but it wasn’t hard to tell she was stunning. I clicked on a photo and was drawn immediately to her eyes, dark brown pearls gazing seductively through the screen.
I started to write a message to her, then stopped. It was too soon, I thought. If I messaged her immediately, maybe she would assume that I had nothing better to do than scroll through Instagram all day. That wasn’t attractive.
So, I waited a few minutes, or thirty, before I sent her a message.
I wrote, Hi, I’m glad you liked my picture. It gives me an excuse to message you! How was your weekend?
She replied, Lol, I thought you were cute 😉 I’m in Korea now, just having a rest.
If you didn’t know, this is what dating is like these days.
I asked her out the next day. We agreed to meet for dinner in Hongdae on Friday night. I promised to take her dancing if she didn’t seem like a serial killer. Well, she said, I guess it’ll be a short night for us.
The Night We Met
My cab pulled up next to the subway exit. We were supposed to be meeting in a few minutes. I paid the driver, hopped out of the cab, and pulled out her phone to text her. That’s when I saw her standing on the corner of the street.
My jaw dropped. She was wearing a tight, black dress, her hair catching in the wind as she turned towards me. She looked gorgeous. I told her, and she just smiled.
We ate dinner. Thankfully, she didn’t seem like a serial killer, so I took her dancing. We went to my favourite bar, and we shared a few gin and tonics. We danced until 3 am, had some Korean anti-hangover soup, and went home.
Throughout the following week, we continued to talk. We FaceTimed almost every night, chatting about things like our lives, our dreams, our fears. Within such a short period, I had gotten to know this girl very well. I knew her better than some of my friends who I’ve known for years.
We agreed to meet again on Friday. I asked her if she wanted to stay with me for the weekend, as it would be her last in Korea. She agreed, on the condition that we’d go sightseeing together.
The Weekend I Fell in Love
She arrived on Friday with a suitcase, a duffel, and her purse. From my window, I saw her cab stop outside of my apartment. I ran downstairs to meet her. We kissed and brought all of her stuff up to my apartment.
On Friday, we went to a live comedy show in Itaewon. All of the comics were foreigners; i.e. the show was in English. We had a few beers, met some new people, and called it an early night.
On Saturday, we went to a famous park near the river. We rented a tandem bike and rode along the river to the fashion district. We parked our bike near some food stands, shared dumplings and noodles, and watched street performers. While we watched a performance, a magician asked her to be a volunteer for a trick. She excitedly accepted, getting a paper rose in return.
That night, we went out again. We met up with some of my friends and the friends we had met at the comedy show. We ate dinner, played Korean drinking games, and went to one of Seoul’s top clubs.
Despite all the fun we had so far, my favourite moment was waking up on Sunday morning and seeing her sleeping. I watched her breathe, her belly slowly rising and falling. She looked so peaceful lying there, her toes poking out from under the blanket.
At some point during that weekend, I had fallen for her. It was the way she got along with my friends, her ability to be liked by everyone in the room. It was the way she danced, my attention unable to focus on anything but her. It was the way she wanted to know more about my family, about my childhood, about my dog, even though that knowledge would be useless in the future. It was her authenticity, her capacity to be vulnerable, sharing her deepest secrets with me. It was the way she cared about me. It was all of these things and more.
That afternoon, we said goodbye to each other. Our short romance had come to an end. Neither of us was sad; we were happy that we had the chance to get to know each other for those two weeks. We were glad to have danced, sang, laughed, and to have loved. We would continue with our lives having gained nothing but a few memories, carrying the secrets of someone that we once knew.
And that’s all love is, isn’t it? The feeling that brings people together, no matter how long that feeling lasts. A chance to touch someone in the deepest of ways, and to know, at that moment, you are their everything.
And then just like that, she was gone.
The Epilogue
What started as an Instagram like turned into love.
Sometimes I wonder if she ever thinks about the time we spent together like I am thinking about it now. I wonder if I had as much of an impact on her life as she had on mine. I think about what could have been if we tried to make things work.
However, I know our love existed as it should, a passionate flame that burned shortly but burned nonetheless. It wasn’t meant to last in the present, only in our memories. She changed me and made me believe in love again, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
She’s dating someone now. Her boyfriend is a handsome man, appropriate for a girl like her. I hope that she is happy with him. I hope he makes her laugh and that he treats her with respect and kindness. I hope he loves her with all of his heart.
What She Taught Me About Love
We possess an incredible gift to love. We have an infinite capacity, a potential that each of us holds within ourselves to impact each other’s lives in profound and meaningful ways. The ability to leave a permanent imprint within others, the binds of our memories taking us back to that moment in time when we knew each other, when we held each other, and when we loved each other.
I used to think that love only belonged within relationships. I thought that love was a means to an end; to love someone to marry them in the future. However, I learned that love is an end in itself. It is a feeling that can exist outside of relationships when a long-term future is not guaranteed nor desired. I learned that love transcends any perception of what is possible. I learned to love as freely as possible.
—
This post was previously published on Hello, Love and is republished here with permission from the author.
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash