The Nice Girl's Dilemma

*Note, this post has nothing to do with Korea, but everything to do with my life.*

I consider myself amongst the ranks of the “nice girls”. We try to show kindness to others, we want them to feel welcome and happy, we say friendly things, and when we think mean things, we (usually) keep them to ourselves. We’re not perfect, we’re just pretty nice.

Well, we nice girls have a dilemma. If you are one of these nice girls then you probably already know what’s coming next because it’s happened to you at least once, likely more. You see, as mentioned above, we like people to feel welcome, so we talk to the outsiders and the shy people, the ones who don’t have many friends or aren’t sure where they fit in. At a social gathering, we’re the ones who go talk to the person who’s sitting alone. It’s part of who we are – we’re being nice. Most of the time this works out well… when it’s aimed at another girl… However, when we’re nice to boys, well, that’s where we get into trouble.

We like to be nice to everyone – that is, after all, what makes us nice girls – and so we’re nice to lonely boys too. Unfortunately, sometimes they misread our niceness as interest, or they become infatuated with us because, well, no one else talks to them. They make advances and we try to tell them we’re not interested (in a nice way, of course). This usually doesn’t work so we have to take more drastic measures… and we end up feeling not so nice. In the end, we back off and leave them lonely again… just waiting for the next nice girl. (We could also call this the lonely boy paradox)

So what is a nice girl to do? After a situation like this we still see lonely boys and want to be nice, but we’re scared to talk to them. We know that if we don’t talk to them, it is likely that no one will. We are torn between going against our nature and putting ourselves in a potentially… awkward situation. This is our dilemma. What do we end up doing? Take a guess – we ARE nice girls after all.

*Sigh*

Leonard and Lucy - Forgetful

Do you remember the movie Memento? Leonard can’t make new memories so he relies on Polaroid pictures and tattoos all over his body to help him keep track of people and clues to solving his wife’s murder. Or how about, on the lighter side, 50 First Dates where Lucy falls for Harry over and over, but forgets him each day. Committed to pursuing her, he reminds her repeatedly of their love and works with her dad and brother to help give her a normal life.

In some ways I’m an awful lot like poor Leonard and Lucy – God shows his faithfulness to me again and again, but I can’t seem to remember it for very long. Each time something in my life does not go as planned (and let’s face it, that’s pretty darn often) my first instinct is to panic and cry, “God! Why aren’t you taking care of me?!” I yell at him for a while and tell him how disappointed I am. Eventually I calm down, but I let him know that this is still a problem and he needs to fix it… and you know what – he does. Then my prayers switch to, “God! You’re so good! How could I have doubted you? Never again!”… until the next time something goes wrong…

Is there something wrong with my head?! Why is it that when things don’t go my way I automatically doubt God’s faithfulness? It’s embarrassing! Unlike Leonard and Lucy, I don’t have some traumatic experience to explain my poor memory – just the opposite – I have every reason to remember. And like Harry, in 50 First Dates, God keeps showing me how much he loves me even though I forget him and question his goodness. Wow. If someone treated me the way I treat God, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t still be sticking around. But thankfully, he’s God and I am not! *Whew*

In my life right now I can think of several situations that are not playing out the way I anticipated. Some of them are being resolved before my eyes, but with others I’m still waiting. So rather than fall back into my bad habit, I am reminding myself of God’s faithfulness. I may not see how this could possibly resolve, but I do know he’s always taken care of me in the past so I have every reason to believe that he will do it again. I may be forgetful, but he certainly is not.

4th of July (I'm American, no matter where I live)

For the 4^th of July weekend June, Natalie, and I decided to go to the beach at Gangneun. June went early to meet a friend, but for Natalie and myself, like the trip to the Butterfly festival, this required getting tickets for the last bus out at 10:30 and a mad dash after work Friday to get to the bus station in time. The three hour bus ride was not bad and they even showed the Brazil vs. Netherlands game. Once there, we walked down the strip of restaurants and motels along the beach until we came to the Star Beach Motel, decided that was a good name, and went in to find it decently priced. (I stole some of Natalie's pic's so hers are marked with an *)

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We settled in, then went for a 2am snack before going to bed (the snack consisted of “point and order” food at a local café/bar… always an adventure).

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View from our motel window.

Saturday was rainy… all day. We went to a BBQ hosted by some other Americans in the area and most people joined teams to play dodge ball (I happily sat that one out). It was fun meeting some other people (Kim!) and enjoying the beach. By late afternoon we were drenched so we went back to the hotel to dry off and change before enjoying a wonderful crab and assorted seafood dinner.

* The raw squid (right) was pretty good, but that red and orange stuff - NASTY.*

*Shrimp and Snails - both pretty good.*

*Our crab we picked from the tank. Sorry Mr. Crab!*

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*Mmmm, fish head soup.*

*Kim and June*

*Natalie and Me*

Sunday started a little overcast, but the clouds burned off and it turned into a beautiful sunshiny day. Natalie had to leave early, but June and I spent the day walking the beach, sunbathing, and getting hit on by strange men – June by an older Korean man and me by a South Asian man with a thick accent.

Man: Hello. Where are you from? Me: Umm, (looking to June for help, but getting nothing) Seoul. Man: Where are you from? Me: (realizing June has moved behind me) um, USA… Man: Are you from Transylvania? (ok, so he probably didn’t actually say ‘Transylvania’ but that’s what it sounded like) Me: It was nice to meet you (walk away). Thanks a lot June!

June and my feet - can you guess whose are whose?

Star spangled me.

All in all, it was a good weekend with good friends both old and new. Happy Independence Day all!