I went on a second date with a cute Korean guy I met online. He’s a Korean expat.
Last year I started learning Korean. I picked up some new hobbies. One of those hobbies was learning Korean. I wanted to learn a language with a different alphabet, and Hangul is really easy to learn. I picked it up for fun and am not very good at it, it’s slow going, but it is going.
The first date was really basic, and my learning Korean didn’t come up. We just had a fun time and the conversation flowed naturally, so I didn’t think to halt the flow to say it. I didn’t think it mattered, it’s not like I’m any good.
Yesterday during our second date, it did come up. He forgot an English word and said it in Korean, and it happened to be something I learned during my vocab stuff, so I translated.
He was really surprised. When I said I knew some words and was slowly picking up grammar stuff, he seemed really frustrated.
He wasn’t angry but he seemed angry, he spoke in an accusatory tone and asked me why I didn’t tell him I was learning Korean. I told him it didn’t come up last time, and it did now. I asked if it was a problem, because I didn’t understand the reaction.
He cut the date short after telling me I should’ve told him I was “one of those girls.” I don’t know what that means! I wasn’t going to use him for linguistic purposes or anything, and I have a good job here so I don’t want to emigrate over there for work or anything.
Is there some cultural boundary I crossed?
Here are what netizens think:
- You’re definitely not the ah for learning a language. I think he might be paranoid that you might be one of those girls who are obsessed with kpop and a koreaboo. I’ve seen many stories were girls were dating Korean men for the kpop aesthetic. It’s very weird and think maybe that’s where his mind went.
- k-dramas and k-pop music are a thing, so there’s tons of people who are… like that. he might think you’re talking to him because he’s korean so you can pretend you’re dating an idol or call him oppa or something.