Finally, the official complete story!
Yes, this is long, but it's the most important story of my life, and it finally needed to be accounted for.
Preface
Throughout high school and college, I had been fairly typical in dating girls ~ consisting of short 1-2 night sequences and longer months-long bouts, and everything in between. As I, increasingly from time to time, grew tired of the "same old song and dance" of the dating world, I allowed a couple of those to even evolve into "relationships." The final one (ending as they all did: with her cheating on me), as I was almost near to completing college, convinced me that I needed a break from being "involved" before I began to think about settling down with someone. I had unofficially set my timeframe to about 2 years... really my goal was to find myself, so I would hopefully be better able to find the right one. So all that was now in hibernation while I would go about other priorities in life.
Since I had a somewhat worldly childhood, thanks to a pen-pal named Yuki and mom's work with foreign exchange students, I've always been interested in other cultures ~ particularly Japanese. In my final years of college, as I was reveling in the once-again single life, with great expectations of finding myself, I began to consider learning Japanese (which I had always tried to do since I had a childhood pen-pal). Since I was in the midst of preparing my first official resume, I though that adding another language on that would be quite enticing to a potential employer... it was still a bad economy, post 9/11, afterall. So, I joined a couple of pen-pal websites (a neat evolution from the pen and paper that I used as a child). The desire to expand my linguistic abilities, as I realized that I would soon need to find a job, further brought me to realize a program called JET. In JET, I would be paid to travel to, work and live in Japan, in exchange for teaching English. So I decided, then, that I needed to take some time after graduation to see the world and expand my knowledge. I began to compile the requirements for the Japanese government program.
That First Email
During all of that time, I was receiving about three new emails per month, from the pen-pal websites. Two out of those three were from females, and the remainder from males. Over the year or so that I was involved, I had come to realize that all the females were not out for language exchange, but rather for finding a man. Since I was consciously wanting a break from that, it disappointed me severely... I really just wanted to learn a language. So, eventually, I wouldn't even answer most of the emails from females (especially those desperate ones from the Philippines). As for the guys, there was another level of insanity: I got the distinct impression that they were mostly neurotic with other ulterior motives. For example, one of them would ask me about nothing except the U.S. military (he was a Korean guy who loved guns and envied our abilities, apparently). Again... not my purpose for being there....... Language, please?!
As I was about to quit those websites... as I was getting to the point of deleting emails without even reading them... and as I was almost complete with the JET paperwork and literally preparing to send it to the Japanese government, I got an email from HeeLa. I don't know why I didn't delete it, as I had done with the countless others. When I read it, I was immediately intrigued. Her broken English was somehow endearing, and I felt one of the few honest desires for legitimate language exchange once again! I spent the next hour or more replying to her, enthusiastically.
Thereafter would follow many long emails, and once we connected on MSN Messenger, many long chats. After HeeLa gained courage, and after I convinced her, we began to video-chat.... for hours on end, no less. It, honestly was amazing how seeing a person (including body language) helps overcome communication challenges. More than that, though... in all my life, I had never felt such a friendly and trusting friendship, as I had with HeeLa. I remember many times when our chats would go on until daybreak... the poor girl never got any sleep, but she didn't seem to mind.
Let's Meet
It didn't take us long to change our minds in what we wanted. Upon me learning that the Korean language was phonetic (just like the English alphabet), and thus much easier to learn than Japanese (which I was struggling with), I shifted my priorities. HeeLa would gain a massive competitive advantage in the Korean job market if she became better with English by studying abroad. HeeLa and I had a blossoming, trusting and dedicated friendship which, given its online nature, surprised both of us. I can't quite remember exactly when it happened, but my plans for JET faded about the time HeeLa planned to come to the U.S. to learn English for a semester or two... the wheels were set into motion.
Speaking for myself, given the circumstances: I was lucky in suddenly getting a great job at GE (without the language/experience-inflated resume), a full year in Japan was no longer possible, I was much more quickly learning Korean, and I would have a free place to stay in Korea. Given those circumstances, the decision was made to go to Korea for a post-graduation vacation and return to the U.S. together, with me in a somewhat familiar role as "host family" to HeeLa while she studied English. After that role had been fulfilled, and my friend had returned to Korea, I figured I would then be ready to settle into my career and get back to finding the right woman, with a fresh mind, in the ultimate goal to begin the rest of my life.
Korean Adventure
I had just flown on an airplane for the first time, only months before (to Florida with family), I didn't have a lot of money, and I certainly had no experience travelling to foreign countries. So, I think it is testament to how much HeeLa and I instinctively trusted each other (perhaps before we even realized it), when I bought the ticket to Korea and eventually stood (as much as jet lag allows) in Incheon Airport's arrival hall, straining to find my friend among a sea of similar looking people, while being hassled by enthusiastic taxi drivers. After a half-hour of waiting, the logical side of me began to wonder what was wrong... but at the same time, I (emotionally and inexplicably) was not worried. Right at that moment, a girl much taller than I expected was suddenly standing beside me trying to get my attention. The adventure was now in full swing.
I could go on and on about the wonders and excitement of travel, but don't want to digress from the point of this story. For the next month, we travelled to many places and further enriched our friendship.
The First Realization?
Since we now knew we could really trust each other (and HeeLa's family was also convinced), we prepared to leave. It would be the end of my foreign adventure and the start of hers. The plan was for us to fly back together on the same flight ~ but that wasn't going to happen. Due to an immigration paperwork mixup at the last minute, we were suddenly finding ourselves, for the first time, about to be separated.
HeeLa was absolutely distraught... and I couldn't stand to see her that way. We planned to get her on a flight the very next day, so we would meet again relatively soon, but that didn't seem to matter. At the moment I had to catch my plane, I completely broke Korean cultural norms and did the unimaginable (right in front of her mom)... I hugged her. I just wanted her to feel better and hopefully provide a sense that "it will be okay."
Until the plane boarded, I struck up conversation with other travellers (learning that Korean men apparently can't stand when women smoke cigarettes in public) and busied myself with concentrating on listening to announcements and eventually finding my seat on the plane. Only after I was situated and looking out the window of the plane, toward the airport terminal, did I begin to realize something wasn't quite right. After we took off and I saw the airport getting smaller, the full gravity of the situation began to hit me. I was, for the first time in a long time, very sad... illogically, irrationally sad... and it, honestly, surprised the hell out of me. I felt that I missed her... a LOT (keeping in mind that I was thoroughly enjoying being on my own and a lone traveller). And I found myself deeply concerned about her being able to make it the next day... would the plane be safe? Would she have trouble with immigration? Would the language barrier be a problem? Would she simply be scared?? I worried and empathized for her, as I had done with no other before.
Over the next several hours, I had my first conscious thoughts about something: was there something more to HeeLa and I... something that I didn't even realize? Or, was it that I had simply never had a deep friendship at this level before, and it was unfamiliar to me. This was my first inkling of a realization about what we potentially may have been. Only a month later, would I figure out which way it really was...
