What on Earth Was Romance.

-1.

Among the things that come to mind after 'that incident,' my recent thought is the closest to the most skeptical thought. Regrettably so. Even so, the reason I made up my mind that I should write down the story today is that this thought was found at quite the 'end part.' In other words, it's the primary result of my pondering about 'romance' or 'love' itself. It doesn't seem complete, so I attached the word 'primary,' but the first can also become the last. Just like Kim Seung-ok's 'Seoul Moonlight Chapter 0.'

(In this story I'm going to leave out parent-child love. I think the parent-child relationship is definitely a 'different relationship.')

0. Meeting

Meetings generally, at least for now, seem to begin 'instinctively.' In fact, people say that to start trying to meet someone, an indescribable 'feeling' is important, and I tend to think so too. But after that thing called a meeting, people feel 'attraction,' or, failing to feel attraction, continue or stop the relationship. It can become friendship, it can become a relationship that meets briefly and then parts, or it can become a romantic relationship. Those things all happen by each other's 'hearts.' But the question that arises here lies in the 'operating method' of our hearts.

1. Familiarity

Most people will know this. If a familiar acquaintance you always saw suddenly isn't seen one day, you come to wonder why that person isn't there. Ah, of course, people who lack peace of mind, or who in such matters just brush it off as 'I guess they went somewhere,' will just let it pass without any thought. But for someone you held even slightly 'decent' feelings or impressions about, it's human nature to wonder. Because God gave humans the blessing or curse of the ability called 'curiosity.' So when that 'familiar person' keeps appearing you don't notice, but when they don't appear, that person's existence isn't immediately forgotten. Like dust piling up, forgetting also accumulates. Conversely, the way of becoming a 'familiar person' is also like dust piling up. They're not seen in the immediate day-to-day, but at some point you often feel they've become a 'familiar person.'

2. Standards of Romance

Each person's standards of romance differ. Just for example, you could list things like this.

1) Romance with someone who loves me

2) Romance with someone I love

3) Romance with someone who can share thoughts with me

4) Romance with someone whose looks suit my taste

5) Romance with someone of similar personality

6) Romance with someone of different personality

7) Romance with someone morally upright in character

8) Romance with someone who has a lot of money

9) Romance with someone who makes me happy

10) Romance with someone of strong independence

11) Comfortable romance, like being with a friend

12) Romance with someone you can feel sexual attraction to

The images of desired romance are so many it'd be tiresome to write any more. But all of these originate from 'emotion' and 'judgment,' and I think that emotion and judgment generally come from the 'first impression' of a person. The 'first impression' I'm talking about here isn't the 'first impression' that originates merely from 'looks.' That is, I mean the 'first impression' in a state where the person's character and behavioral habits are also formed. So if you've formed an 'image' of a certain person, that can be seen as that person's 'first impression' having formed. If this 'first impression' matches your standards, the probability of wanting to start dating that person is high. Because your standards might be just one thing, or might be several—if the standards are few the judgment will end quickly, and if the standards are many, I suspect it divides into cases where judgment takes a bit longer.

It seems that when you pass these standards and your hearts match each other, you start dating.

3. So then what on earth is love,

It's not that you date because you love. But I'd thought I'd been dating while loving someone. And in my own way I desperately loved that someone. But the reason skepticism comes to me now is the thought that, as I started meeting a certain particular person, maybe I liked the 'inertia' and 'familiarity,' the 'distinctive feeling' I could sense in conversation with that person, and so on. If I organize these things, there can be things like the following. (However, this is extremely subjective content, so if it seems strange, think about your own standards.)

The thoughts that come while looking at that person's clothes, that person's voice, the topics I talked about with that person, that person's values, what they pursue, their way of reacting, their laughter, their expressions, the distinctive atmosphere of each of the spaces I was in with that person—from the outdoors to class or mealtimes—the gifts that person gave, and so on

Before, I'd thought I felt everything looked happy because I loved 'that person,' but now I'm not sure why I feel that, apart from loving 'that person,' 'my own mindset' is more important. If I must find a reason, it's the thought that in the end it came down to my own resolve. Even the things I usually preferred ultimately became things I liked because some trigger arose, but the things I'd been familiar with since childhood mainly became 'objects of liking,' whereas it's very rare that something unfamiliar suddenly became liked once I passed the age of 25.

So was it that finding that 'familiarity' was love—reluctant to abandon that familiarity, just meeting someone by that inertia, is that love? But I don't want to admit it that way. In the conclusion I reached at the end of my thinking, to say that 'familiarity' is romance and love—there's flutter, waiting, the heart-burning emotions, and various other things mixed in with 'romance.' But at least when it comes to the 'desire to meet' each other, it seems 'familiarity' acts quite a lot.

4. 'First Impression'

There's something we often miss. Namely, the other person's 'change.' We start meeting people after a 'first impression' is formed, but most people view the other person by the 'first impression.' Viewing that person by the 'first impression' seems to be the most ideal yet most realistic and at the same time 'regrettable' habit. To the point that I feel sorry toward previous dating partners I didn't properly consider these things for. The other person is changing, yet we want to see the figure we saw in the 'first impression' and seek only that. But people aren't like that. People are so complex that they themselves have trouble knowing themselves. Even an animal's behavior pattern is hard to figure out, so how much more a person? Yet having felt it up to now, I feel there were too many cases of being trapped in the 'first impression.' Not just me but many people around me too. Going by trusting the 'first impression' is an extremely difficult thing, yet most do so, and then when that makes a person so very tired and worn out, the 'conclusion' that the relationship ends settled in my mind.

5. Reducing expectations..

Romance is ultimately about reducing 'expectations' of the other person. Those expectations exist in the 'first impression' too, and in one's own 'ideal romance.' A romance that reduces both well yet fails to feel the other person's change can only be a difficult process. It was rough. I was like that for a while too, and perhaps that's why both of us went through a rough dating life. Within it there was, I suspect, 'expectation.' Getting hurt when the other person doesn't react and move as I think is because that expectation is large, and a thought suddenly occurred to me—that if, while dating, you look at the other person with the feeling of a 'parent' looking at a 'child,' it seems you'd have the leeway to wait even if the other person is different. People break up because of bad things, not because of good things. That means they feel the 'bad things' more strongly, and I suspect that in the parent-child relationship, they try to see the 'good things' more largely. Each small thing is precious, yet the bad things that deviated from expectations throw away those 'precious things' and the relationship ends—I can only say such things are truly regrettable.

6. Regrettable things..and closing,

I now have the habit of remembering 'happy things,' but among people there are surely those who don't, and that worries me a bit. Isn't remembering mainly the 'things that weren't good' too sad a thing? At least in my view it's a sad thing. Well, I'm not sure whether I have the leeway to worry about those people, though.

Like Rousseau's saying that all things are 'inevitable,' in fact these 'regrettable things' too probably happened because they were likely to. If humans were animals quick to realize, the things understood after breaking up could also become 'inevitable things,' but it's regrettable that it's not so.

Having written it, the piece is quite difficult. But considering that this just poured out from my stream of consciousness, I don't think there's been a week as mentally complicated as this one. Maybe once I vomit out these thoughts at the counseling room, again and again, a more organized, easier-to-understand piece will pop out. I have no talent for writing novels, but as for essay-writing talent, I do feel it's grown more than before, and that's probably because I write essays often—this too will ultimately be placed in my personal essay collection. The title, 'An Inscrutable Piece.'

Next time, will there be 'romance,' or is it just 'meeting' people? I can't for the life of me remember what the romance I'd envisioned was. Was I just wandering in search of someone I could share my thoughts with? What was the difference between the relationship with someone I 'love' and someone I 'like'..