Dating In Korea Red Flags Trauma

I fell into the exact trap that I really don't want you to fall into. It has now been five years since the first time I stepped foot in South Korea and I really think it is time to finally post this video. I have dated in South Korea, I have also been used in South Korea, I have also been lied to, I have also been ghosted, and I still love Korea so much, do not get me wrong. But there are deep realities that need to be discussed about more online. Trigger warning in advance. I was taken advantage of against my want, desire, will. Challenging things happened but I also was able to receive a lot of free help. Check the timestamps below because I will section the video out accordingly. This is a really important video. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here but let's get right into it. First thing I want to talk about is my own personal experience. I had seen dramas like other people had seen dramas and I just took Korean men as being the gentle, kind, gentlemanly type. So I came in with that understanding, men are going to be this kind of way in Korea. And what I want to say is I fell into the exact trap that I really don't want you to fall into. Koreans, and I don't even, I shouldn't even say Korean men, I should say Koreans in general, men and women, know that you know that you think this. So a lot of Koreans who want to take advantage of foreigners know that you are coming in with this conceptual understanding that they are gentlemanly or kind and soft and caring and sweet. So they know what you're looking for. So if you're going out to try to meet people, if you are swiping online, trying to meet people online, understand that they know what you're looking for. So they know how to meet the thing that you're hoping for. And what's so sad is people will fall quickly because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm in Korea, I want to meet someone. And then they go on a date and they have this wonderful time together. And for some reason, this really kind gentlemanly person is being a little bit more pushy than they anticipated. And they're kind of like, I said, I don't want to do this. Or I said, I'm not really into this kind of thing, but he's so kind and he treats me so gentlemanly. So maybe I'll make an exception for this person. Again, they want you to believe all this. They want you to fall for all of this. When I first came to Korea, gosh, this is 2021 spring. I got onto Bumble to try to meet some more people because I started having almost anxiety attacks in my quarantine space. You're in a hotel room for two weeks that you can't leave. And the longer that those two weeks went on, I'm thinking in my head, I actually don't know how to do anything in Korea. So I just want to meet anybody. So I was on Bumble BFF, trying to just meet as many people as possible. And I think I was also on like normal Bumble. I was like in my bio looking for friends. So the guys and the girls knew I'm just looking for friends. And I did meet a lot of people through Bumble BFF, but I met one person in particular and I specifically told them I'm not interested in any of that hookup scene. I'm not interested in doing any of the things. I'm just looking to make friends and try to understand Korea a little bit more. So the very first day that I left quarantine, I met up with this person because they said, hey, I'll show you around. I'll show you how to take the bus. I'll show you how to, you know, order at restaurants and stuff. And I was so grateful. Met up with this guy. He's doing exactly what he said, showing me how to get places, showing me around. We are getting on buses. He's taking me everywhere and it's getting darker and darker. And I'm kind of like, I think, you know, I should probably head back kind of soon. And he kept coming up with excuses to keep me with him a little bit longer. And we're having a good time. So I'm like, you know, he seems like a great guy. And then it gets dark outside. And I'm like, I really think it's time for me to go home. And then he tells me, oh, you know, it's actually so late. The public transportation, you probably won't be able to make it home in time because public transportation closes. I don't know how you're going to get home. He's not telling me about how to take a taxi or anything like that. You know, I'll just, I'll get us like a hotel room and we can stay in like separate parts of the room out of the kindness of his heart. Right. And I was like, I already expressed I don't want to do things, you know, but I had trusted this guy because we spent a whole day together. I should have just taken a taxi. But again, I didn't know how these things worked. And so he crafted this perfect scenario to take advantage of a just innocent person like me. You know, I don't need to go into details, but I can just say that there were things I didn't want to do. I said I didn't want to do, but I didn't know how to get out of the circumstance. But I just blamed myself. I took all the blame on myself. I should have known better. And I really beat myself up. And I remember trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. You know, maybe he just fell for me really fast. I remember we were on the escalators going down and I was like behind him. And he like turned around to look at his phone. And I just like, you know, glanced over a little bit. And I see something about like a girlfriend. I see a bunch of hearts on his phone. And I was like, just shocked and disbelief. And I remember just saying, I have to leave. I didn't even confront him in that moment. I just said I have to leave. And later that day, I texted him and I was like, you have a girlfriend. And I remember he was like denying it. It was just a mess. And I was like, never, ever speak to me again. Like, I mean, I just never speak to me again. And so let's talk about these red flags to look out for. This isn't going to always apply to everyone. There might be exceptions. But I want you to know about these so you don't make the mistakes that I did. Let me just say, before I ever came to Korea, I would have said I have a pretty good radar for people. I can read people pretty well. When I came to Korea, the radar was non-existent. The culture, the type, the people, the situations. It was nothing like what I had experienced. And I have never seen such good acting. Genuine connection. Like, you really are getting along. And within a moment, that person is totally out of your life because they got what they wanted out of you. Or they noticed they weren't going to get what they wanted out of you. And they're just gone. So even if you feel like you have a good radar, I really hope that you listen to this whole list. And please proceed with such extreme, extreme caution. If you meet them online, if you meet them out and about, if they come up to you on the street, first of all, Koreans don't be doing that. So if anyone comes up to you on the street and is trying to ask you out, culturally inappropriate if someone approaches you off the street. You can be flattered, but just run away. There is a horrible phrase that maybe you've heard of, and it's called riding the, insert a color, horse. Riding the white horse. Riding the black horse. There is a phrase where people just want the experience of a foreigner. They're really, truly just interested in hooking up with you. So they will say whatever makes you happy. They will agree to whatever you say. They will just say yes to get you into the place of just hoping they will come up with some sort of scenario to be able to get with you. And then, bye. You know, they just leave. And you can message them and say, I don't do X, Y, and Z. They will probably say, okay. But watch to see if their words and their actions actually line up with that. Do they start getting really touchy with you when you first meet them? Do they start maybe even bringing these things up? I know you said you don't do X, but what about A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and then all the way up to here? Can we do that? Is that okay? No, they shouldn't be pushing you. They shouldn't even come close to that line. What do we call them? These poopy people. These poopy people, whether or not they want to talk to you into the app or off the app, that doesn't make it any better. On Kakao, it is so easy to create a second profile. And if you don't know what Kakao is, it's a messaging app. We use iMessage or WhatsApp. In Korea, they use Kakaotalk. And with Kakao, you can so easily keep your Kakao open, but you can actually assign a specific profile to a specific person. You might be thinking that they're messaging you on their personal number, and you look at their profile photo, and you look at their description, and they seem like such a sweet guy. But what you don't know is you're on a separate profile, and their girlfriend is on their main profile. And their girlfriend, they have a little countdown and pictures of their relationship. But when talking with you, you see the profile that they've set, and it looks like they're a single person. That's actually one of the most common things that I've heard. People were like, he was married the whole time. He had a girlfriend the whole time. And that's because it's so easy to talk even through profiles. And if they tell you they don't have Instagram, or they don't have social media, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Yes, they do. They just don't want you to see their profile. They don't want you to see their personal life. These kinds of poopy people will often ask you a lot of unnecessary questions about your personal life or your personal information. So they will ask you maybe, how many times have you done something with someone? How many times have you had... I know there's that one guy on Instagram, like the classic Hongdae guy. The reason why it's funny is because that's a real guy. Do you live alone? Why don't we go to your place? You know, we can't go back to my place. Oh, you have an Airbnb? Perfect. Just be careful where this person wants to meet or where they're taking you. You can even rent hotels hourly in Korea. Try to only meet in public spaces and really try to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give your personal information out. If they ask you, like, where are you staying? Give as general of a concept as possible. If they're trying to walk you home or let me take you back to your place, don't let them. You do not want them to know where you live. You don't even want them knowing the building that you live in. You don't have to live in a state of fear because Korea is very safe. But be smart. Don't give your Airbnb passcode even to, like, the main door. Make sure that they don't see you when you're putting in those passcodes if they did walk you home for some reason. Just hide these things for as long as possible because at the end of the day, you really don't know. Maybe that person seems great. Maybe that person seems amazing. But you just really don't know. And if they're really genuinely into you, they're gonna totally respect that. These poopy people, they might want to meet you, but they can only meet you at certain times, you know, certain hours, like late at night and things like this. But they will give you so much attention and when they get what they want out of you, often, they will ghost you. They will... Koreans would rather have less conflict, so they will just disappear. And so if you are stuck in that ghosting, like, why haven't they messaged me back? We had such a great time. It's because at the end of the day, they don't want the conflict. They just want the experience and they're so willing to just cut you and let you go. Often, if you're using apps to try to meet people, the pictures won't even be real or the pictures will be heavily filtered or it might not even be the person. So one of the first kind of things to try to do is FaceTime that person. If you are going to meet anybody in person, try to FaceTime them before you ever meet them in person because the pictures that you could be seeing could totally not be the person. And so you could go to this space, you could try to meet someone in this space, and then that person doesn't even look like the person that you saw online. And so you're not looking for them, but they know what you look like because your pictures are genuine. And then you end up leaving and then some random person is following you home. So you have to be very, very careful in the apps. You could even put in your bio, FWB, with like an X, you know, not interested. These people often don't even read the bio. They're just like looking at human's faces. You're thinking like, oh, they must have read my profile. They know exactly what I want and what I don't want. Oh no, honey, they didn't read nothing. They saw your face. That's all they saw. Sometimes, literally, people don't even look at their phone. They just go like this and they just swipe right on every single picture to see who they match with and then see who will reply to them. Don't assume that they saw your profile and make sure you say in the conversation, just so you know, like I am very not interested in this or I will not do these things. Always have somebody else who knows that you're meeting someone. Have code words with friends. You know, hey, I'm gonna go meet this person. If I don't message you after two hours, you know, please call me. If I haven't updated you after blah, blah, blah, I'm out of time, please call me. I'm gonna send you this emoji. If I'm ever uncomfortable and I send you this emoji, please call me right away. Things like this. Allow other people to know what's going on and set standards for yourself before you go on this date because the heart is so deceptive. So you say to the guy, I'm not interested in doing physical things. I wanna be home by this certain time. He says, okay, right? And then you say you wanna be home by seven and it's 6.30 and he seems like he's trying to come up with another thing for you guys to do. Your friend calls you at seven and says, hey, honey, are you home? And you're like, oh, we're still out. Your friend needs to love you enough to say, you better get yourself on a bus, the soonest bus as soon as possible back to your Airbnb immediately. Because if this is really the thing, if this person is so great, they'll be willing to keep that boundary that you've set. I pray you yourself never, ever, ever need to know this information. But in case you do, there are places called Sunflower Centers and they are all over Korea and it is a place where you can go and receive free, fully free help and assistance if you have been taken advantage of. I got free testing for six months. I got medicines to help me make sure that I didn't contract any sort of diseases and things like this. I cannot thank the Sunflower Center enough for how much they helped me through something that was so hard. I do not want you to end up with regrets like I will always hold in my life. And thankfully, you know, I've come a really, really long way. I would say that these situations, even though they were dark and dreary and really sad, truly they are such a thing of the past for me. I have totally healed, but it took a while for me to get to that place of being healed in this category. So if you want to know more about my personal story, if you want to know more about what happened in Korea, if you want to know how I healed, then I will leave a video link up here.