alright, settle down for story time. as well as being really fucking funny, this is just a good commentary on the 'world we're living in', i think, and the way we connect and go about our lives in 2020 generally. and wHaT a LoNg, StRaNgE tRiP iT's BeEn...
first off, i just want to say i'm putting this out there not out of any disrespect for this girl or her privacy. it's a really good, positive, wholesome tale. so i hope the screenshots don't come across as skeevy. not intentional. the pics are from her tinder profile and the publicly linked instagram she had there; i've taken out all identifying details.
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so in summer 2019 i was living in bristol. it's early august, a beautiful sunny weekend, and i'm having day-drinks with friends at an outdoor craft beer place near my apartment. so far, so normal. as usually happens after a few drinks and a pizza, we get to talking about our dating lives and recent experiences. out come the phones and dating apps. on this day, as we're all sat there having a good time, i match with a korean girl, who pretty immediately starts messaging me.
turns out she's in bristol/bath (it's a twin city/town, bath being very tourist-y) for a weekend, before flying back out to korea and leaving the UK. she's been in europe travelling and it's one of her last weekends away. she's keen to meet in bristol for a drink. naturally, i assent, and invite her to join us - come on in, the water's warm ...
this girl meets my group at the bar, which immediately seems pretty brave and cool: she's in a foreign country, in a brand new city, and has just found her way to a bar full of half-cut british guys. she has a half-pint with us and we have that first, slightly stilted, slightly excited conversation. you know, typical first-date/first-meeting stuff: a little tense, but you know both know the score, you're both having fun, you're both curious ...
after her first drink, this girl baldly asks me if we want to go back to my apartment. ok! i go with the flow, this date is going well ...
we have a really nice time together, with the usual thing. we play music, have a dance and a laugh. afterwards, we lie around in bed for a day, she's showing me trashy korean tv, the usual 'netflix n chill' scenario. soon she has to get up and go. i wish her well. she blows right on out of my life as quickly and seamlessly as she glided in.
because we only matched and hung out for 2 days, i never got her full name. besides, she gave me her korean name, so i wasn't likely to remember it (lol). she only had a temporary UK phone number. she effectively disappeared forever. no matter, my summer continued, with plenty more of the day-drinking and dating thing going on. i didn't think anything more about it after that weekend.
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fast forward 1.5 years. i've set my passport on tinder to seoul, reaching out to make some contacts and associations in the city before i arrive. today i got a brand new superlike from a girl, who immediately messaged me: 'hello, do you remember me from bristol, last summer? x' frankly, i did not recognize her and did not remember.
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but after checking her profile and instagram ... oh my god! it's her! what're the chances! in a city of 10,000,000, this girl has matched with me on tinder within a week of me using it, and remembers me! on her instagram she even has photos of herself in bristol/bath that weekend, in the exact same outfit! a sudden flood of memories!
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but that's not all. turns out that weekend experience was some sort of mini-revelation for her. maybe she was travelling abroad for the same reasons i'm going (above), and was doing something to challenge herself, enlarge her experience somehow. anyway, when i expressed disbelief that she even remembered and recognized me, she said: 'actually, that weekend changed my life'.
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okay, now i'm nervous. if a girl you've only met once tells you 'you changed her life', chances are the reasons for why are going to be Very Bad. i immediately thought, 'Holy shit, did i get this girl pregnant? do i have a secret son and heir in korea?' more prosaically, i worried that we'd exchanged an STI or some other gross thing, which had generally given her a headache. but no, actually it was good: she said that the weekend with me, playing music, being shown my records, me showing her how to DJ, etc, inspired her with a totally new passion in life.
in the last 1.5 years, she enrolled in a music college in seoul, learnt how to produce dance music, and worked on her DJ'ing. she's now releasing her first single next month.
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i'm going to meet this girl again when i get out there. this is like something from a movie: it's too fucking good. i've been sat here laughing in disbelief all afternoon at how cinematic and scripted this all feels. plus, as a bonus, she's cute as hell. not bad work, all-in-all.
so the next time you start talking about 'uzique's bad trip music' or 'bleep bloop computer music', just remember: the problem might actually be with your fucking selves. neeeeeeerds!
i looked back through my iphone photos to that weekend, and found this video clip, as well. perfect.
https://imgur.com/AVC7DbJ
Last edited by uziq (2020-12-17 10:43:35)