A letter for a special woman in my life

15 Jul 97

Time flies when your having fun, or in love. The last time we talked was over ice cream at Baskin Robbins in Namoon. I'm writing so we can stay in touch more often. There were some issues we left hanging at the ice cream table that I wanted to talk about further.

Concerning staying in touch:

In our last conversation you asked about staying in touch. Yes, I'm happy to stay in touch, I enjoy our relation on many levels. These days it's a question of your time and attention constraints. So, stay in touch when you get the chance, I'll always enjoy a visit or a call when you get the time. If you get an e-mail connection, let me know, that's the easiest way to slot into the interesting things I'm up to.

Concerning JK:

First, a congratulations: When you were standing with JK at the taxi stand, I was very happy to see you being a touchy, feelly woman. That looks good on you, and I envy JK. I was always hoping our relation would evolve so that you'd feel like doing that with me. I remember how disappointed I was putting my arm around you in the rain in the Taejon Expo. There was no one around, no one would see, yet your response was a calculated, precise, neutral-passive. Your body language was a mask. I couldn't tell if you were enjoying my touch but not wanting to show it, repelled by my touch but too polite to show it, or completely oblivious to my touch and thinking about something else entirely. I had my arm around a statue, and that was not what I wanted, not at all.

What made it doubly disappointing was I knew you had potential to really enjoy tactile stimulation. I knew that as I gave you your first back rub. But I've never found the way to unlock that potential in you. I'm happy to see that JK has, you are now finding a way to let that gift of enjoying touch show itself. It's a special gift. Use it, don't hide it, don't waste it. My philosophy is don't ever be embarrassed to make someone feel good by touching them. So while you're in love with JK, Good on ya!, give him both barrels of tenderness.

Second, a concern:

Your relation is moving fast -- this means that you're making assumptions about JK, and he's making assumptions about you. I hope these assumptions are correct enough that the post-honeymoon surprises won't be too jarring.

Here's the major assumption I'm concerned about: Time after time when the subject of marriage comes up in class, I hear Korean women wish to marry a man who will be "tender." It seems the average Korean man treats potential wives like princesses, and then once he has married one, takes his wife for granted. If this happens to you, if you get treated "average", will it be satisfactory? If being taken for granted is not satisfactory, have you talked with JK about how you expect to be treated as a wife? Wing spent enough time in America to have a decent idea of what a woman with an Orange County middle-class heritage expects in marriage. Does JK have similar experience relating to American women, or are you planning on doing most of the adapting?

(Had we moved into a courtship phase, I was planning on writing you an essay about what a girlfriend-boyfriend or marriage relation would consist of, and asking you to do the same. You may want to consider doing something such as this with JK.)

Concerning back rubs:

I'm going to miss them. Heck, I'm already missing them. Having you enjoy those sessions was fun and good for me at the same time. (does that mean they must have been fattening, too?)

The power and pleasure of the back rub was due to the attraction I felt for you, and the pleasure I could see you experiencing as you were getting one. To get my "back rub benefits" again I'm going to have to find another woman who stirs me as deeply as you have. It's not going to be easy. It's going to be damn tough, in fact. But that's why it's time for me to return to the states. I've got a much better chance of finding someone there.

My experience in Korea has been that Korean women are beautiful on the outside, and can be very tender with other women, but they're dead in their relations with men. They either never think about romance and affection in a man-woman relation (in the sense I think about it), or they can't communicate what they know to me. After trying several times to establish relations with Korean women, I've concluded that for me good romance takes good communication, and I'm not going to find that with a Korean woman here in Korea.

This conclusion makes me suspicious of Korean men's romantic abilities. Why are they willing to put up with such a "dead relation" with their wives? Obviously, they don't expect any better. (Well, they may expect better, but they don't need it to make a marriage function.) They look to mostly to men to find affection. If JK is an average Korean, will you have an average Korean male-female relation?

Please forgive me for being blunt with these questions. I bring them up in the cool-headed hope that researching them (should you decide to do so) will strengthen your relation with JK, or allow you to discover sooner rather than later that the relation contains some serious misconceptions hidden in the clouds of warm, fuzzy emotions.

So, once again, congratulations and more good luck. (You've had lots of good luck already finding JK.) Emotionally, I'm off to continue the search for my true love. Your replacement is going to have to be a touchy, feelly, good communicating, intelligent, rational, attractive woman. That's a hard combination to find. Wish me luck.

Find her or not, you're now a major part of my romantic memories. Thank you for that.

Another concern, coyness:

As your relation with JK has developed, you've become coy. Many times I would ask if you wanted a back rub, and you would say, "Yes." Then as we were headed back for the apartment you'd say, "No, it's [fill in the blank with an excuse]." Being coy is not becoming. You were losing points in my eyes for being "female wishy, washy" each time it happened. Now that I know how deeply you feel for JK the coyness becomes somewhat understandable, but it's still not becoming.

Summary

Right now your attention is filled with JK. Congratulations! I hope he's your Mr. Right for years to come. Thinking about him is certainly giving you a wonderful glow, and it's nice to see you look that good, and feel comfortable about expressing affection in public. However, this new relation is making you hard to communicate with. If this letter is good for you, and you'd like to get more, let me know.

The future of our relation is pretty much yours to moderate. Right now my schedule is fairly easy to adjust, and I think I'll always enjoy adjusting my schedule to make time for beautiful, interesting women who are interested in me.

Stay in touch when you get the chance; stay in touch in ways that are convenient for you. I'll be focusing on other activities, but I'll always enjoy hearing from you.

Roger