Currently listening to: Til I Hear It From You – Gin Blossoms
My mom was at it again with the 소개팅 (blind dates). Honestly, I wasn’t sure where she found this guy—or cared, for that matter. At this point, I was just going along with it for the story.
She told me she had given John, an engineer, my KakaoTalk (the Korean equivalent to WhatsApp) info so he could text me. When he finally did, it was immediately clear he was fresh off the boat, straight from the motherland. His English grammar wasn’t great, but his Korean was flawless.
We agreed to chat on the phone the next day after work. He called me while I was driving, and the moment he started talking, it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. His thick Korean accent made it difficult to understand him at times. I even asked, in Korean, if he’d prefer to speak in Korean instead. He adamantly said, “No.”
I don’t particularly enjoy listening to Asian accents, despite being Korean myself. Maybe it’s because my parents made me work endlessly with tutors to perfect my English, forcing me to erase the accent I’d picked up from them. “Tenk you so mushie. I lilly appreciate.” Even though I was born in California, I grew up sounding like a fob, and I hated it. For the longest time, I thought McDonald’s was pronounced, “Maec Donarduh”. It’s a wonder that the kids relentlessly teased me in school.
The only foreign accents I find attractive are Kiwi, Australian, British, and French. Maybe it’s because I don’t hear it that often?
The more he talked, the more I was turned off. And the more turned off I got, the faster I wanted to hang up. When he asked when we could meet for a date, I told him I’d have to double-check my work schedule and get back to him. To be fair, I did have some new projects, so it wasn’t a total lie.
When I got home, I asked my mom why John didn’t want to speak in Korean. She didn’t have an answer. I sighed.
The next day, I texted John suggesting a few dates and asked him to let me know which days worked out the best for him. A day went by. Then another. No response.
I deleted the Kakao app. The only reason I’d even downloaded it was to text my mom who was a heavy user of the app. I figured I could just text her on iMessage instead.
I never heard back from John, and honestly? I was relieved.
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