Adventure Partner

[killer tofu]

This is very long and somewhat graphic, but I feel it’s necessary to get the full picture. I tried to write it in a brief and fluid manner, but at the same time, my emotions may have had some influence.

 

Well so i started going on adventures in S.Korea. different festivals and having a good time. started using tinder and met a nice and beautiful english teacher from canada. we talked for about a month before our schedules and events lined up and I finally met her after an adventurous day of 'Mudfest' at 4am. She immediately asked if i wanted to go on a walk with her down the street. she noticed a large closed waterpark and asked if i'd be interested in getting into it. we walked and talked and eventually managed to find an opening and climbed up to the highest water slide to watch the sunrise. we chat for about an hour and when we started to hear locals entering the closed facility we went down the giant slide and ran out all soaked wet. going back in the direction of her room and still soaked we decided we'd run into the ocean, where after a quick swim we made out and went back to her hotel. said it was fun, kissed some more, and parted ways.

 

I see her the next weekend and spend the entire weekend with her sitting in the park reading a book and getting onto rooftops and eventually cuddling for almost the entirety of sunday, when she finally gives in and we have sex without protection twice before i have to get back home. She's easily the most beautiful and fun woman I've ever been with already.

 

We exchange texts nearly endlessly everyday throughout the week.

Following week she goes to China for a weekend. I can't because of work nonsense, but she sends tons of pictures and selfies just for me(not on instagram or FB). She brings back a cylinder of dried rosebuds for my tea to calm my stress I talked about. We spend another weekend seemingly all in bed. I'm somehow able to go an unending amount of times with her and each time is as good as the last, which with previous girls was never the case. She always smells amazing and is beautiful with or without makeup and she somehow claims to not smell me after I've sweat a bit or even from morning breath.

 

She kinda openly talks about a few past hookups and such. I assume that's kinda her lifestyle. The sex is amazing, but for whatever reason she pushes me off whenever she is about to orgasm and takes a moment to cooldown. Explaining that it's too much sensation. She also refuses to let me go down on her because she feels it's too intimate, but she has no issue doing it for me, though I rarely ever ask for it.

 

We proceed to spend weekends and select weekdays of the next month together, thoroughly enjoying every moment. Managing to spend entire afternoons in cafes just lost in conversation and amazed at how many strange things we have in common. Most obscure things that I've never heard another person say, feel, or think come out of our mouths and we finish each others ideas to the point of almost creeping each other out. We discover our taste and what we both are searching for in a mate in terms of looks, body-type, and personality make us exactly perfect matches. She explains how she is a child of 2 divorced parents, one in canada and one in arizona and she is basically a runaway from a 9 year long engagement back in canada to a man that wanted to make her a trophy wife/stay at home mom and doesn't 'believe' in marriage but does believe in love and monogamy. I explain how im just a lost pilot painter surfer with a dream that's becoming a nightmare and I just want to go home and she can come with me.

 

I travel roughly 2 hours from my residence to her apartment. We travel to all the key tourist destinations in Seoul She buys me copies of her favorite books and random gifts from her travels through south east asia and I paint her paintings of sunsets and roses and shared experiences with little notes on the back expressing my feelings.

 

The entire time we exchange "I hate you"'s with clear meaning of love "I hate you like I hate sunsets and mangos." After about two months I finally say the first I love you and she (though somewhat reluctantly) replies the same. I realize that this is the first time I ever truly was inlove with anyone and that all the times before were something less.

 

Having been a previous runaway and general freespirit, I make sure not to make her feel confined in anyway, not setting boundaries or labels to anything. When asked by strangers if we're BF/GF she immediately says no before I can respond. Making me immediately think of 500 days of summer, but also understand her background.

 

Strange things seem to happen unprompted, like romantic songs coming from silent hidden speakers in parks or restaurants playing obscure french music as we walked by when just that same day, we played the same song to each other to see each other's music taste.

 

All this while, my ex continues to text me from time to time on facebook talking about school things or how much she misses me and I'd occasionally vent my job problems to her as she had similar issues in the same profession. The girl sees the texts popup on my phone from time to time and I foolishly try to keep it discrete, which only makes me look incriminating. She doesnt mention anything of it and plays it cool, but surely takes note.

 

Her teaching contract comes to an end and an epic travel plan her and her friends had for months before I met her were soon underway and my job prevents me from going. We have one last weekend together. Spend it on some beaches and oceanside cottages. I take her to the airport. She cries. She makes me promise I'll see her again one day. I promise her that I'll see her in one of the countries her and her friends are traveling to.

 

We keep in touch, texting daily, exchanging I love and miss you's, goodmornings and goodnights, Snapchats, and selfies of my flying and her adventures. She describes in detail the hostel and backpacker life. the crazy drugs and orgies the people around her get into. the insane beauty around her and the savagery of young western travelers on vacation. the history and wildlife of the places she visits.

 

She and her friends stay up till 4am nearly daily drinking and partying. Her friends, who have no relationships, are fully enjoying themselves with new guys nearly every night. Meanwhile, she, who is mostly introverted like myself, keeps to herself, helps her drunk friends, sends snapchats, texts me, and reads her books she finds along the way.

 

After two weeks, I break, from missing her so much. Being unable to leave the country yet, I buy her a ticket back just for the weekend and get a hotel in seoul to stay at. We both recognize the absolute insanity of it the realize we're in trouble if our need for eachother makes 2 weeks too unbearable. She brought back a hand crafted toy turtle. The weekend is incredible. We visit a bunny park. Jump over a bunch of railings to get our own personnel seats to a water and light show. Accidentally find ourselves on a boat party where we both discover we don't like dancing unless it's entirely not forced. On the last night, at 3am monday morning without being on pass and having a flight near the DMZ the next day, we made love on a helipad on the roof of the gangnam hotel with the entirety of Seoul's skyline all around us. 6hours later we parted ways again.

 

Two weeks later I traveled to Saigon to see her. She rented out a beach cottage just 10 feet from the ocean. Managed to get the honeymoon suite by claiming it was our 5th year marriage anniversary- a joke we commonly made to eachother whenever we finished eachothers' sentences and ideas seemingly unprompted. We body surf. Walk through the beach village that was basically all to ourselves, eating incredible seafood, having our own desert restaurants to ourselves while the locals intentionally play us romantic music, watch, and smile. We skinny dip, get massages, and of course make love constantly. During a beautiful sunset, I explain how I've never loved anyone as much as I loved her. She expresses the same. We return to the airport the next day and kiss for nearly 10 minutes in public before leaving. (Both of us never really did PDA with previous partners, but for some reason we can't help but do it all the time.)

 

We keep in contact. Her trip was to end two weeks later on her birthday and I made plans to ensure my calendar was open. Texting and snapchats become inconsistent with travelling to more remote parts of south east asia. sometimes 12-20hours between texts, causing concern on my part, due to the particular threat of sextrade, and her in my opinion being a highly desirable candidate. She manages just fine.

 

The week I was expecting her, I start to ask for possible ideas for plans. Suddenly she says she's not coming back for another few more weeks and is waiting on her last paycheck to arrive from her teaching job so she can afford to fly back to canada since her job here is done. Confused, I get a bit troubled that she doesnt keep me informed of changes in her plans as they would provide us opportunities to see eachother again. She simply states she doesn't know beyond a few days where she'll be.

 

I crack again after 4 weeks apart and get her a ticket back for a long weekend. We spend the 4 days in seoul. enjoying the fall leafs, a fancy boutique hotel, it's amenities and do some shopping and casual city walking. We grab some wine and cheese and candles and get to the top of the hotel during a full moon and drink and talk. Unfortunately it's too cold for lovemaking, but forced snuggling together. She seems slightly more distant and aloof, but with the known impending departure of her back to canada looming over and all the issues she faces when she returns, it's understandable.

 

She returns to thailand, sending regular texts describing her experiences and people she encounters. her friends are no longer with her and shes travelling by herself. suddenly she travels from one location to another and states she wants to see a few last things of one location before leaving. She starts to text less frequently and the only snapchat i get is of her drunkenly watching two guys upclose arm wrestling. My mind races. She had always given slight signals of being provocative and friendly, but my intuition was screaming at me. She still didnt respond to my texts till late morning. Asking, how her plans to see the things she told me she intended to see went, she simply said she wasn't able to. I begin to describe to her how the picture she was painting for me looked like and she began to call me crazy and the only one for her. I believed her.

 

She visits one last time that week. I'm not able to greet her at the airport because I randomly get selected to compete in an annoying job event and I see her back at her gay friend's place. We kiss just like before and after warming up to eachother, as usual, make love and then be on our way. She seems extra distant at times, occasionally explaining that she tends to push people away when she knows she's about to leave, saying that it's just a coping mechanism from a childhood of constantly moving that we previously discussed and I somewhat shared with her. It comes and goes, suddenly we're very close and the next apart and little things triggered unusual absolute disgust towards me. She felt I was being resentful and insecure and that my imagination was getting the better of me. I believed her and tried my best to just act like nothing new was happening and her pms was also setting extra levels of strangeness. Finally after a tumultuous weekend where we spent entire days in a cafe and spilled all the more deeper issues and trust problems and things that we never dared talk about like labels and boundaries we make final amends and watch 2 of her favorite movies and ofcourse, make love. the following morning, against my better judgement, i decide to look at her phone, just because I needed to be absolutely certain before entering this long distance relationship for 3 months (I know it's wrong).

 

I find her facebook chat to be clean, kakao harmless, but then her whatsapp has a chat thread with a guy who i recognized was a bit active on her facebook as of recent and looked like the guy in the snapchat. It was all there. In between the times she visited me she was with this guy, saying nearly the exact same things about how amazing the sex was and how attractive he was and so similar, and how warm the cuddling was. I was devastated. I walked down the street with her to the train that would take me home, completely quiet, unsure of how to handle the situation. She took notice. After confronting me, I told her I did something bad... I looked at her phone. Her face immediately sank with guilt. The pathetic thing was, I still loved her, even though she clearly had a similar enough fling that was more important than me for atleast the last two days where she wouldnt text back for 8-12hours. we talked it over infront of the train station. She explained how it was just a fling and that she never said she loved him and that she only said those compliments to boost his ego and she lied and gaslighted me just cause she never wanted to hurt me with that knowledge and that we never really established any clear boundaries of the relationship and she had always assumed that I was talking with someone else and sleeping with someone else. And even so she insisted she only wanted to be with me and that no man compares at all. My trust, devastated, I said I love you and that I'd have to do a lot of thinking.

 

We talked it over and the only way i proposed a fair solution is from here on out complete and absolute honesty over everything for better or worse. And that I must have sex with another woman in Seoul within the next 3 months in order to restore some figment of moral balance in the relationship and move on. Though very reluctantly and in a clearly jealous and sad manner, she agreed to the terms.

 

We've basically been communicating via text every day since June

As of now, I'm finding it impossible to love her like before, but when I think of our similarities, a part of me cant help but feel we are (as cheesy as it sounds) Seoulmates (pun intended). What do you think? Should I just end it with her? I love her so much and the thought just devastates me, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to trust her again.

 

I'm 26. She's 29. I've only been in very long-term relationships and the already openness/no bounderies of this is very new and while it's something I might have liked in my college days, I'm not too sure I want it now.

Edited December 1, 2016 by killer tofu

[oldbutcurious]

what happened can really be confusing and trying. you definitely cannot trust her much, nor be at peace with a long distance relationship. If, after you're done with the end of your agreement, and you still want to iron out things with her, try again. See how you can make LD work.

[umirano]

It's a train wreck. I'd walk if I were you. I mean, what does that even mean when a person who hops from one guy to the next like this says these romantic things? She's just sugar coating the cruel truth that she is no where near being serious about you.

 

She doesn't mean any of it. You were a welcome pass time, you've served your purpose. Now she's looking for an easy way out. Going LD comes in rather handy at this time.

 

Travel / holiday relationships aren't real. They're not serious. They're not permanent. They're incredible and amazing. But remember, what burns twice as bright lasts only half as long.

 

Sorry and good luck

[killer tofu]

Thankyou for the responses. My friends told me to move on, but they're going to favor whatever protects me the most, so I just needed a more impartial opinion. My intuition told me something was wrong and it was correct. And my intuition also tells me to move on. I value your perspective and I think I know what I'll do.

 

She still insists that all of this is keeping her up all night and had I declared I wanted to be exclusive with her before she left for her trip she would have abide and that she is happiest in a monogamous relationship. Of course the trust is in shatters, so what she says now or has ever said is questionable.

 

As someone who is constantly seeking understanding of people's behavior, why would a woman act like this? To be fair, I've been with a girl I knew wouldn't work and I tried to let her down slowly, but when fights/conflicts/drama arose, I took the opportunity to make a clean break and ended it there. Why would she drag this on?

Edited December 2, 2016 by killer tofu

[Space Ritual]

Why would she drag this on?

 

Because she likes your Beta male worship of her and she likes the fact that you stroke her ego for whatever short time she spends with you. Then she gets tired of it and goes messes about with an Alpha Male until she tires of being ignored by Alpha Male , then she comes back to you.

 

She drags it out because you allow her to do so. You will probably not like what I am going to say here, but I feel you probably need to be disabused of your overall importance to her.

 

You really don't mean that much to her other than you are a nice but temporary distraction. You're the go to guy when she has had her fill of someone else. You will never be anything other than that.

 

You would be better served by making her nothing but a distant memory.

 

Good Luck

[Karma24]

And not wanting oral...are you sure she isn't a post-op transsexual? Not to freak you out, but I knew a M to F trans. person who described doing something similar because they didn't want to be "discovered."

Edited December 14, 2016 by Karma24
Missed a letter

[killer tofu]

Hah I joked about that a lot with her. I mean she has pictures of her as a young girl/child. She did have some surgeries in that area dealing with 'cysts' and such, so the thought did cross my mind. I mean I'm more familiar with female anatomy via fingers than tongue, and as far as I could tell, there was nothing unusual. Are there any telltale signs?

 

Also, TMI: we did it while she was on her period a few times... soooo

Edited December 19, 2016 by killer tofu

[salparadise]

She still insists that all of this is keeping her up all night and had I declared I wanted to be exclusive with her before she left for her trip she would have abide and that she is happiest in a monogamous relationship. Of course the trust is in shatters, so what she says now or has ever said is questionable.

 

As someone who is constantly seeking understanding of people's behavior, why would a woman act like this?

 

 

Well, what you know to be true is not something she can fix with reassuring words. a) She is not fundamentally monogamous, and b) she is not inherently honest and truthful. Those characteristics are not something one simply chooses, they are deeply seated aspects of personality.

 

Not only that, but the bit where she said that if you had asked for exclusivity her escapades would not have happened... eh, that's a rationalization that conveniently alleviates guilt on the rational level... but the fact is that she knew this wasn't an open relationship situation.

 

Is she remorseful? Yea sure, she's sorry you figured it out of course, but her moral compass wasn't enough to prevent it from happening, nor was she overly concerned with the consequences. When she went long periods being unavailable, then jumped straight up from the other guy's bed and texted you as if nothing was different... that's not something a remorseful person does. She was fine with it as long as you were none the wiser.

 

If you're a monogamous person yourself, and you place high importance on that in a mate, the mental gymnastics you'd have to do won't reconcile with what you know to be true, and you can't change that. You'll always wonder what will happen when opportunity and motivation intersect.

 

Could you ever rebuild trust? No one can give you a definitive answer, but you know it won't be quick, easy or one-hundred percent.

[killer tofu]

So I've been living my life and going to social events and such and ended up hooking up with another girl for a few of the nights, which was within our agreed terms. I hinted at it happening towards Canadagirl and she was understandably not very happy- to the point where she was very angry and has become rather short and distant.

 

I've been cheated on and cheated on someone before in an actual defined relationship, so i don't pretend to be a saint myself, but in those instances the cheating party had every intention of bringing things to an end shortly and that's exactly what happened, which is where this is new to me. I don't believe that action alone defines whether someone is monogamous or not, but it certainly is indicative of issues within the relationship.

 

The only thing I'm hanging onto is the fact that she was travelling, and I know plenty of good girls and friends that sort of went through a temporary suspension of ties, responsibilities, morals, etc during their brief time abroad to the degree that travel flings are almost a planned occurrence. I mean I'm fairly certain I'd do something similar (considering I kinda just did) and I'd be hesitant to be honest about it. All this would imply distance as the major issue, which is more or less solveable.

 

Though at the same time, if I truly loved someone more than anyone or anything and truly valued them, I would never do anything that would potentially end things, because, even without set boundaries, I stayed true. So it's fairly clear the feelings are at the very least not mutual, but it's not necessarily fair to expect someone else to fall as madly and foolishly in love as I did.

 

The only foreseable means of restoring trust for me would be to basically stalk/monitor her for an extended period through a number of conditions and seperate agencies, which is pretty unhealthy and resource-heavy, though I discussed it with her and she seemed fairly receptive to the idea, so i figure if both parties value the relationship enough, it is possible.

 

It's a mess, but I've never met anyone like her and I'm terrified of letting go.

 

/ramble

[angel.eyes]

You were part of her South Korean adventure. Nothing more. It was a fling. No doubt, she was having similar experiences seeing the local side of things in Vietnam, Thailand, and wherever else she went. Sorry, but she's now back to her reality and her "real" life in Canada.

 

She could say anything to you or any of these other guys (one of whom you discovered) because she had no intention of sticking around for the long-term consequences of your expectations. For some travellers, dating a local is just part of the whole experience.

 

You both just had different expectations of your dating encounters. She's not your soul mate.

[salparadise]

The only thing I'm hanging onto is the fact that she was travelling, and I know plenty of good girls...

 

You're rationalizing. Nobody is saying she's not a "good" person, she just runs fast and loose with the pussy.

 

You were an escapade, the other guys she's schtupping are as well. She likes escapades. Do you really believe this is all dependent on geo proximity?

 

You wish she were of the monogamous variety. She's not. Your brain is working overtime to obfuscate that fact.

 

So it's fairly clear the feelings are at the very least not mutual, but it's not necessarily fair to expect someone else to fall as madly and foolishly in love as I did.

 

Infatuation.

 

The only foreseable means of restoring trust for me would be to basically stalk/monitor her for an extended period through a number of conditions and seperate agencies, which is pretty unhealthy and resource-heavy, though I discussed it with her and she seemed fairly receptive to the idea, so i figure if both parties value the relationship enough, it is possible.

 

Don't be naive. You can't monitor her sexual proclivities. The fact that the above paragraph begins with "the only foreseeable means of restoring trust," followed by the rest of that craziness should speak for itself.

 

It's a mess, but I've never met anyone like her and I'm terrified of letting go.

 

As long as you're hanging on tight, you're going to hurt. Eventually you'll realize that hurting is the main feature of this infatuation. You have a strange combination of monogamy-cuckoldry-masochism going on here. If you really enjoy that kind of pain... well, it's your life and you're free make your own choices.

[Karma24]

Hah I joked about that a lot with her. I mean she has pictures of her as a young girl/child. She did have some surgeries in that area dealing with 'cysts' and such, so the thought did cross my mind. I mean I'm more familiar with female anatomy via fingers than tongue, and as far as I could tell, there was nothing unusual. Are there any telltale signs?

 

Also, TMI: we did it while she was on her period a few times... soooo

 

If she was having a legit period it stands to reason she was born female.

 

What made you joke about it a lot with her though?

[killer tofu]

Because the way she viewed marriage, relationships, sex, logic, and life in general were all entirely not what I had experienced in a girl before and were more typically what I saw in a close guy friend, or myself at one time, so it stood to reason kinda.

 

 

Also, her apparent perfection made me suspicious. I basically seek 3 qualities in a woman and meeting those makes her a unicorn in my experience. Usually a girl I meet is only 2 of the 3 qualities: Beautiful, smart, monogamous (not a slut). Seeing as she claimed to be all 3, it made her a unicorn or in fact not a woman at all. Turns out her 2 qualities were being beautiful and smart.