What love left behind

The road from my hometown back to Seoul is always lonely. The 2024 Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) holiday was five days long, but I came back to Seoul the night before. As always, my uncle scolded my father — that it was time for him to step in and take an active role in my marriage prospects. I'm from a conservative region in southeastern Korea, where the elders take these things seriously. In their eyes, finding a partner and settling down is the natural order of things. It's not just my father. Every elder in the family is waiting for me to bring someone home, to start a family.

The problem is I can't let those words roll off me. As always, I listened carefully and sank into thought. "Go meet someone. Fall in love again." It sounded like telling someone who just got out of prison to go commit another crime. I'm out of ideas.

Being understood was never easy to begin with. Back in 2023, to my friends, I was a romance movie protagonist — the guy who flew 8,000 km (5,000 miles) for love. But now they say it was a rash decision. It sounds like a pundit telling a striker who missed a one-on-one with the keeper that he "should've passed." Looking back, they're not wrong. When you're in love, it's hard to tell what's rash and what isn't. I was sure I'd found the love of my life.

If I could go back, would I choose differently? Honestly, I doubt it. I think I'd make the same decision all over again. I could have prepared more thoroughly for the move, sure. But I couldn't have said "this is too fast — let's slow down." I don't even know how to respond when people suggest that. Even though it didn't end well, I wish my ex nothing but the best.

In search of love, I kept myself open — no prejudice, just trying to see people for who they are. I thought that openness had finally paid off. After much deliberation, I booked a one-way ticket to Copenhagen. I was also keeping a promise I'd made to my partner. So I quit a job I liked. Threw a farewell party with coworkers who were closer than friends. Sold my things, threw out the dishes, gave the furniture to a friend. I packed up everything in Korea and flew to where my partner was — that was supposed to be home.

But things didn't work out. (There's no more convenient phrase for skipping the details.) The day after the only person I knew in Sweden became a stranger, I went back to the apartment while it was empty and grabbed my stuff — the three bags I'd brought and a monitor I'd bought there. Everything I'd resolved just days before felt meaningless. One afternoon, after lunch, I walked through a cemetery in downtown Malmö. Walking among the headstones, I wasn't even sure what promises I could make to myself anymore. It felt like everything was over. So I left for Türkiye. Stayed in Istanbul, stayed in Izmir. Came back to Korea and tried to do something productive, but for a while, I was trapped in those memories. I started job hunting, but the market was brutal. From lovesick to just trying to survive.

I remember the evening after my first day at a new job. That moment after a shower, collapsing into a chair, all my energy spent on adapting. Once the immediate problem of making a living was settled, the past I'd been putting off came creeping back. Still lonely, still empty. The thought that love would never be part of my life again, that evenings like this would just keep going. So before long, I started filling my evenings with other work. I haven't had a single evening where I just sat and rested.

And they tell me to go meet someone, to fall in love! That's a distant dream. The 2023-24 season was harsh enough, and my life right now is too intense for that.