boys will be boys no matter what country you are in...

so, i have been in korea for a little more than three weeks now...and i have come to realize that no matter where you are in the world, no matter how different the country and culture may seem, people are all basically the same.

most of my free time here i have spent with jenny. she is like my rock. i am so independant in so many ways, but i have never really had to be on my own. i have always had someone around to do everything with. i used to make my roommates do simple things like go to the grocery store with me at home. i used the phrase 'we do things as a family' more times than i can recall. so jenny has taken the place of many friends back home and i don't know what i would do without her. we get on so well. at the same time, she is a bit more outgoing than me. she reminds me of me, before last fall when i sort of shut down to the outside world. she is the type of person who can meet a stranger and can go out with that person in the same night. i miss being able to do that, and i envy her greatly. i myself am more timid of these types of situations these days, never quite sure of how i will fit in and afraid of being socially awkward.

but, i have been making great improvements. i have been tryin to open myself back up to people and it is a slow process, but i think it is getting easier. just this week, i went out to sunny's with ben from work and we talked for hours. i found it is really easy for me to talk to him. i mostly just listened. i just seem entranced most of the time when he speaks to me. he has a lot of interesting perspectives. i feel more like myself when i am with him mostly because it feels like i am hanging out with one of the guys back home. i don't feel any pressure to be proper or anything. it's not like i am trying to impress him, so things are just easy and casual. it is the same way as when i am talking to turk. i guess no matter where i am in life i will always find it easier to be around guys.

at the same time i am trying to open up, i am still dealing with living on my own. it is one of the hardest things for me. just the other night, ben, turk, and i spent the evening at sunny's and when we are all going home and parting ways, it was hard for me to have to go straight and watch everyone else turn right. it is still difficult for me to go to bed at night without someone to talk to while i fall asleep. it's things like that that make me miss cory so much. i had a conversation with my mom today and she said that cory's mom and her are in a class together and mentioned that cory missed me a lot and i honestly cried. but then again, he is the one i cried the most when i said goodbye to. we have lived together for so long that it is hard being without him now. in a lot of ways he was my best friend. i mean, stephanie is my best girl, and i don't even consider her my friend. she is family...my sister more than anything. but cory was the one who i could crawl into bed with if i had a bad dream or who i would pester when i was lonely or had a bad day and he would be the one to tell me everything was gonna be ok. it is hard not to get to talk to him every day.

i spent the evening tonight with jenny and yoona, drinking sangrias and talking random crap about life in general. i believe it will become our sunday tradition from now on. we spent a large portion of the evening ranting about guys and why they are such idiots, which made me start thinking about the random idiot guys in my life.

one thing i have noticed with the guys here is that if you meet them and are nice to them, they assume you want to hook up with them, which is extremely frustrating for me. i came here with absolutely no interest or intention of finding someone. and for the most part, that is still the same. sure, i have found people attractive, but at the end of the night, i am quite content to go home alone. but the boys here think that if you pay them an ounce of attention, you must want to date them or sleep with them. it's hard for me because i naturally gravitate towards guys for friends and it is hard to explain to these guys that i don't want anything more than friendship so i end up just being annoyed with most of them. that's why i love turk and ben so much! i love that both of them can carry on a conversation with me and not think that i am in love with them and it can just be relaxed and casual and we can all just be ourselves!

and it is extremely difficult to explain to people that i am single and ok with that fact. when i explain to people that i don't have a boyfriend here and that i am not looking for one, they assume that i must have someone back home waiting for me. that in itself is a strange situation. i technically don't. but at the same time, i do. it is kind of funny. when i decided to take the job in korea, not one, not even two...but three of the most important people in my life begged me not to go. two of them went as far as to propose. it's one of those times when you think about whether or not they are asking because they truly love you or because they are just scared of losing you. obviously, i chose korea, but i told each of them if they still felt the same in a year when i came home, we would talk, knowing that within a year, they would have all but forgotten me. american boys will never change. two of them only speak to me when i message them and the other got a girlfriend right after i left. that goes to show, american boys only want what they can't have. if you give them the chance of getting it, they don't want it anymore. it's like a child and a shiny new toy.

i guess no matter where you are in life, there will always be a guy around who will lift you up, just to dissappoint you in the end. but at the same time, there will always be those guys that are your best mates that make everything better when that random guy does bring you down.

so, it's like i said before, i have realized while in korea, boys will be boys...no matter what country you are in.