So anyone who knows me personally, knows that I have my...ahem...quirks. Let me give you some examples:
I hate when my ankles are touched without my permission.
If I see spines I get very nauseous and pass out.
I hate saying goodbye to someone and then having to walk in the same direction.
I prefer if people don't rub my skin the "wrong" way.
DON'T point at me if I don't know you and ESPECIALLY don't point your finger in my face.
I am a short person, so if you use me as an armrest prepare to die. It's not cute, it's not original, it's just a blatant display of douchebaggery.
I don't like it when people grab on to me and don't let go.
In general, if people try to pop my personal space bubble I get fairly perturbed.
Face-talkers...are...awful.
As you can gather, many of these quirks are related to my personal space. As my previous posts have discussed, this has been a constant source of trouble in my life here in Korea. Now I won't go into my issues with people pushing or shoving again, but I would like to tell you about the most frustrating and angering thing that has happened to me in the past 3 months...
And it all started while I was walking down the street...
3 of the 5 days of the work week, I walk to and from the train station to get my connecting transportation to my school. This is about a 3km walk each way, and as someone who enjoys the meditative nature of long walks, I look forward to this alone time.
On Monday, May 6th, I was enjoying my daily walk home. The sun was shining, the air was comfortably warm, and I had my ipod pumping through my headphones on shuffle, which is always a fun twist on my daily soundtrack. Now, because I have taken to walking an average of 10km each night (there's not a lot to do in this town) I have mastered the "walk and change music" technique on my ipod.
So there I am, jauntily walking down the street, when I felt the presence of someone walking behind me. This is a fairly common occurrence when strolling in a public place, and also, I understand that people can walk at a variety of paces. During a pass by on a narrow sidewalk, there is usually a few seconds of overlapping awkwardness where two strangers walk side by side and attempt to not acknowledge each other, and then, usually the passer, continues on their slightly faster pace and gains enough ground ahead to no longer be within the same walking realm of discomfort.
This particular pedestrian, knew not of these rules.
He appeared to be in highschool, probably 16 years old (although being Korean he could have likely been 28 or 11) and old enough to know better. I felt him approach me, and while I had my headphones in, I could hear his steps grow faster. His pace would soon overpower mine, and I braced myself for the inevitable takeover. Sure enough, he came up on my left and quickly pulled ahead of me.
Fine, I was prepared to deal with this, but then a most interesting thing happened. When he reached a point about 5 feet ahead of me, he abruptly stopped, appearing to change a song on his MP3 player. As a seasoned music changer, I continued my path, and did the ever-so-rare reclaim of my walking lead.
It was then that a strange thing occurred. This young man, having now assumed a position several feet behind me, briskly walked forward to pass me again. It was at that point, once he passed me for the second time, that he slowed down in pace once more, at one point stopping immediately in front of my path.
Needless to say, I found this mildly irritating, and thus, I continued my constant pace and walked by him once again. Him, upon noticing my lead, repeated his brisk walk to pass me once more, and then repeated his following action of then slowing down once in front of me.
By the 3rd round of this cat and mouse game, I was visibly annoyed. "Move Bitch" by Ludacris conveniently came on my Ipod, which I interpreted as an obvious sign from God. It is at this point that I began to exhibit a behavior common to foreigners in other countries, which is the audible cussing in English that you assume others do not understand.
Not even joking, this continued for 15 minutes, at which point I was now invested, and began to up my pace just so that kid wouldn't try to pass me again. Back and forth we went, silently trying to one-up the other in the sidewalk death match of the ages. Finally, he took his chance, and set off in a full sprint ahead of me.
He had won the battle, but he had not won the war, for in the end, even though he far surpassed me in distance, he will still have to battle with his constant struggle of complete social awkwardness for his remaining teenage years, and likely the rest of his life.
I hate when my ankles are touched without my permission.
If I see spines I get very nauseous and pass out.
I hate saying goodbye to someone and then having to walk in the same direction.
I prefer if people don't rub my skin the "wrong" way.
DON'T point at me if I don't know you and ESPECIALLY don't point your finger in my face.
I am a short person, so if you use me as an armrest prepare to die. It's not cute, it's not original, it's just a blatant display of douchebaggery.
I don't like it when people grab on to me and don't let go.
In general, if people try to pop my personal space bubble I get fairly perturbed.
Face-talkers...are...awful.
As you can gather, many of these quirks are related to my personal space. As my previous posts have discussed, this has been a constant source of trouble in my life here in Korea. Now I won't go into my issues with people pushing or shoving again, but I would like to tell you about the most frustrating and angering thing that has happened to me in the past 3 months...
And it all started while I was walking down the street...
3 of the 5 days of the work week, I walk to and from the train station to get my connecting transportation to my school. This is about a 3km walk each way, and as someone who enjoys the meditative nature of long walks, I look forward to this alone time.
On Monday, May 6th, I was enjoying my daily walk home. The sun was shining, the air was comfortably warm, and I had my ipod pumping through my headphones on shuffle, which is always a fun twist on my daily soundtrack. Now, because I have taken to walking an average of 10km each night (there's not a lot to do in this town) I have mastered the "walk and change music" technique on my ipod.
So there I am, jauntily walking down the street, when I felt the presence of someone walking behind me. This is a fairly common occurrence when strolling in a public place, and also, I understand that people can walk at a variety of paces. During a pass by on a narrow sidewalk, there is usually a few seconds of overlapping awkwardness where two strangers walk side by side and attempt to not acknowledge each other, and then, usually the passer, continues on their slightly faster pace and gains enough ground ahead to no longer be within the same walking realm of discomfort.
This particular pedestrian, knew not of these rules.
He appeared to be in highschool, probably 16 years old (although being Korean he could have likely been 28 or 11) and old enough to know better. I felt him approach me, and while I had my headphones in, I could hear his steps grow faster. His pace would soon overpower mine, and I braced myself for the inevitable takeover. Sure enough, he came up on my left and quickly pulled ahead of me.
Fine, I was prepared to deal with this, but then a most interesting thing happened. When he reached a point about 5 feet ahead of me, he abruptly stopped, appearing to change a song on his MP3 player. As a seasoned music changer, I continued my path, and did the ever-so-rare reclaim of my walking lead.
It was then that a strange thing occurred. This young man, having now assumed a position several feet behind me, briskly walked forward to pass me again. It was at that point, once he passed me for the second time, that he slowed down in pace once more, at one point stopping immediately in front of my path.
Needless to say, I found this mildly irritating, and thus, I continued my constant pace and walked by him once again. Him, upon noticing my lead, repeated his brisk walk to pass me once more, and then repeated his following action of then slowing down once in front of me.
By the 3rd round of this cat and mouse game, I was visibly annoyed. "Move Bitch" by Ludacris conveniently came on my Ipod, which I interpreted as an obvious sign from God. It is at this point that I began to exhibit a behavior common to foreigners in other countries, which is the audible cussing in English that you assume others do not understand.
Not even joking, this continued for 15 minutes, at which point I was now invested, and began to up my pace just so that kid wouldn't try to pass me again. Back and forth we went, silently trying to one-up the other in the sidewalk death match of the ages. Finally, he took his chance, and set off in a full sprint ahead of me.
He had won the battle, but he had not won the war, for in the end, even though he far surpassed me in distance, he will still have to battle with his constant struggle of complete social awkwardness for his remaining teenage years, and likely the rest of his life.
