Mountain Climbing Relationships

It’s almost time for my weekly date with Kimchibreath. We’re a pretty scheduled couple– we talk on the phone on Thursdays, and see each other on Saturdays. Those are the basic rules, but there are some exceptions:

-Saturday night bleeds so fluidly into Sunday morning...and sometimes Sunday afternoon
-text messages don’t count (but more than two is excessive).
-Extreme emotions–happiness, sadness, anger, confusion– constitute an additional phone call.

And confusion happens a lot. If we hang up the phone, and there’s an ambiguous feeling lingering, you can bet there will be another phone call once either of us has had a chance to wonder about it.

I knew when getting into things with Kimchibreath that it would not be easy, that there would be a lot of confusion. When you’re just having fun and flirting, transmitting important ideas is not really an issue. But once it’s time to have the contraception conversation, the ability to get yourself understood becomes increasingly important.

A few months ago, Kimchibreath pronounced that our honeymoon period was over, and a period of testing has begun. This, because I told him that sometimes it's hard for me to talk and express myself with him. He then went on with a monologue about how it would be hard for him to speak his mind in Korean if I only was conversational in Korean, because I might not understand, and he might give up before even trying, and how communication would always be an issue for us.

Then he turned up the Michael Jackson CD that was playing in the car. And I just stared at the top right. Not the fairytale conclusion to that conversation.

For now, I like our set-up the way it is. I appreciate my alone time, time to study, and being forced not to become co-dependent on this one. But sometimes I wonder how it will be if we ever move beyond the Thursday/Saturday schedule, for example, if we decide to move in together. Will we give up and stop trying to make ourselves understood? Will we develop a non-standard form of Konglish (Korean-English) for household use? Will we give up speaking altogether and just use ape-like meaningful gestures instead?

But Kimchibreath constantly reminds me with his thoughtful actions that being with him is a wise choice. He also tries to convince me of this with words. Some of my favourite exhortations have been:

“I’m sort of morally okay.”

“I’m eager-peace-style.”

“You don’t mix bodies with a loser.”

And of course,

“You've got the hard one. You've conquered Everest.”