Gen Y Speaks: My epic 12-day Korean trip on a Tinder first date

[能田]

(Commentary Today Saturday 20 April 2019)

My epic 12-day Korean trip on a Tinder first date

By Hana Jo

The author and her Tinder date met for the first time in Jeju and agreed to stick together for six days

and then decide whether they would continue travelling together or go their separate ways. They ended

up being together for 12 days through three Korean cities.  Jeju Tourism Organization/Facebook

Updated 20 April, 2019

What was your best first date? Mine was a 12-day trip to South Korea.

Last July, I packed my bags, dropped my son off at his father's house and took a flight to Jeju to meet a perfect stranger for the first time after matching with him on the dating app Tinder.

To be clear, this is not something I typically do — travel abroad to meet someone I don't know, and a man no less.

I have always been a good girl. I stuck to my books, did well in school, got a respectable job and built a career.

By 26, my whole life was charted out. I was getting married to my college boyfriend and we agreed we would never have kids, but we would go on all kinds of adventures together, just the two of us.

But, you know what they say about the best-laid plans and all that.

By my mid-30s, I found myself divorced, a single mother, and servicing a mortgage on my own in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

How did that happen? And what happens now?

Of course, in this day and age, no journey of self-discovery for a newly single person would be complete without a trip through online dating. Tinder was my dating app of choice.  

After 13 years out of the dating scene, the app was a crash course in modern romance.

I learnt that:

• If he's asking you to “Netflix and chill”, he is not just looking forward to the new David Attenborough documentary.
• That as a woman seeking a man on a dating app, I would be the recipient of a surprising number of unsolicited photos of male genitals.
• And being ghosted hurts, but it happens all the time so you had best figure out how to get over it and move on.

But there was Steve. We matched in late April last year, but he didn't drop me a message until two weeks later: "Where are you based?"

"I'm in Singapore," I replied. "Where are you?"

Without waiting for his answer, I checked his profile and saw he had written that he was an American expatriate living in Shenzhen, China.

"Oh, you're in Shenzhen," I said, answering my own question. "How did we match?"

(Tinder shows you only profiles of people within a limited geographical range.)

"I was on holiday in Singapore a few weeks ago," he said. "Shame you’re so far. Maybe we could go on a trip together someday."

Who asks a stranger on a trip within five minutes of texting on a dating app?  

Obviously, Steve was some kind of psychopath playing a long con, out to harvest my internal organs for sale on the black market.

But what can I say? I was bored and felt safe knowing that if things got dark, I could simply “unmatch” and never speak to him again. So, I played along.

I replied: "That sounds exciting. But maybe we could talk and get to know each other first, make sure neither of us is a psycho killer?"

"Sure, ask me anything," he said.

OFF TO JEJU

Plot twist: A month later, I was booking my flight to Jeju and we were planning an itinerary.

Understandably, some of my friends were alarmed.

"How are you sure he's not a murderer or a rapist?

"I want you to have fun but, more than that, I really, really want you to be safe.

"I am going to be so mad if you die.”

But I was confident I would be safe. I conducted my checks (some online sleuthing, phone calls and a surprise video call) and was satisfied that he was who he said he was.

He also seemed honest and straightforward, always answering my probing questions without sounding shifty.

And here’s the thing: I was done with the straight and narrow. After a lifetime of five-year plans and doing what was right and proper, I was ready to let go and live a little.

So, in late July, Steve and I met for the first time at Jeju International Airport.

The plan was that we would stick together for six days and then decide whether, for the rest of our time in South Korea, we would continue travelling together or go our separate ways.

We ended up being together for 12 days through three Korean cities.

As a travel buddy, Steve ticked all the boxes. He was easygoing, patient and never smelled bad.

In person, he was a lot more loquacious than over text. He always had some amusing story about his friends and family back home in Chicago, his observations about China and his travels around the world.

We had similar taste in Netflix programming, spending hours indoors watching American sitcom The Good Place when the summer heat got too much to bear.

We hiked mountains, lazed by the beach, went shopping and ate many delicious meals.

A particular highlight: Having pizzas and beer on the beach — an impromptu picnic against the dramatic Jeju sunset.

There were things Steve did that I knew would have annoyed me if I were sizing him up as a potential boyfriend.  

But since I had the option of never seeing him again after 12 days, I could roll my eyes and shrug off the way he casually joked about how it was a woman's job to figure out how to get around.

I could put up with the way he always made me talk to the locals, whether to ask for directions or extra pillows. In return, he put up with my know-it-all attitude and terrible sense of direction.

Not bad for a first date, yes? In fact, for all intents and purposes, we were a couple — just one with a countdown timer.

At the end of the trip, we hugged goodbye and went our separate ways home.

Of course, we were sad — you can’t help growing close after 12 days together — but neither of us wanted it any other way. We promised to keep in touch and we have.

It may be emblematic of this era of instant gratification and FOMO (fear of missing out), where you have to keep hustling to the next party, the next gig, the next person.

And certainly, I won’t recommend that you do what I did. It was an arrangement that worked for us, for who we were at that moment of our lives.

Ask any woman about her online dating experience and you’re likely to hear a hundred horror stories.

Believe me, I have plenty of my own.

Online dating has been far from smooth-sailing. In fact, after several unpleasant encounters, I have sworn off it altogether.

That’s a story for another day, but I do have Tinder to thank for Steve and this epic first date.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hana Jo, a mother of one, is a Singaporean who works in the media industry.

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