Last time I talked about marriages and weddings but ideally you wouldn't marry someone without getting to know them first, so today I'm going to share some things about dating culture in Korea, and how it might be different from dating culture that you are familiar with.

1. Blind Dating

Now, you may already be familiar with the concept of blind dates or "meetings" as they are sometimes referred as. If you remember from the student lifestyle I described, Koreans don't typically get a lot of time away from school or work, so that makes meeting new people kind of tricky. Thus, blind dates are set up by mutual friends or family members as a way of helping you to meet new people from outside of your regular circles. These matchmaking sessions come in two forms: sogaeting and seon (matseon).

Sogaeting

Sogaeting (소개팅) is an informal "no-pressure" type of meeting, usually set up between friends who want to help set you up with someone, usually at a coffee shop. The term 'sogaeting' comes from '소개' (sogae: introduction) and 'meeting' (which I'll talk a little more about later).

Seon

Seon (or matseon) (선/맞선) is a meeting specifically arranged for the purpose of marriage. These kinds of meetings are either set up by relatives or a professional matchmaker (yes that is a real profession and not just something from TV). As this is a much more formal arrangement, the setting too is typically more formal, think hotel restaurants. In the previous chapter I mentoined that marriage is very much a family affair and conducted in a manner more akin to business than the casual fashion that a sogaeting is held in. As such conversation will be less about getting to know your partner's personality and more about their educational, financial and family background. If both parties are satisfied with the match then they will continue to date for several months before getting married, so they can actually get to know each other.

A seon is therefore what a normal "arranged" marriage looks like in contemporary Korea. It's unlikely that a person will get married after just one date, so they will continue to see people until they decide whether they want to go through with it or not. (But by all means please continue to write arranged marriage fanfics, I love that genre with all my heart)

Meetings

I know I said there were two types of blind dating but I lied, there's a third. Meetings (미팅: miting) are group dates where an equal number of men and women will gather, also usually at a coffee shop or other informal setting, and get to know eachother. These types of events are usually organised by one person and intended to act as an ice-breaker that hopefully results in a date afterwards. 

 
                               a meeting at a cafe                                              a large-scale 'meeting party'

Of course not not every relationship is the result of a blind date but it's much more common than in the West. 

2. Dating Ettiquette 

Once you've decided to start going out with someone, a number of expectations arise.

Keeping in contact

In the West the '3 Day Rule' is what we use to "not look desperate" or "needy", however the attitude in Korea isn't about seeming "cool", but showing that you're interested. So instead of waiting 3 days to call the other person, you have 3 days to set up your next date. Koreans are very busy people so if you don't contact the other person ASAP they'll probably forget about you.

Koreans, with their vast array of social media platforms, messaging apps, super-fast internet are already very good at keeping in touch with others. It's natural for people to feel very concerned when their phone dies or they have no service, so naturally when you're dating someone in Korea you should be prepared to have your phone on you at all times. Couples won't just call eachother once a day, they'll keep eachother updated all throughout the day, from "good morning" texts to "have you had lunch yet?" texts, "are you getting off work?" texts, "are you home now texts?", "what did you have for dinner?" texts, to "good night" texts. The idea is to be with them the whole day even when you're not. 

Anniversaries, Milestones and Holidays

Anniversaries are always important to remember, but Korean couples take it up a notch and celebrate not only annually, but on other significant dates such the 100th day, 300th day and 1000th day. It might seem over the top, but personally I think it's sweet that people are so excited to be toether that they celebrate so frequently :)

Apart from the obvious Valentine's Day and White Day (for those who don't know, is a day when men will give gifts or confess to women, as opposed to Valentine's where women will give gifts or confess to men), Korea actually has a love-themed holiday on the 14th of every month. I'll provide links below if you want to know more about these days!

• January 14th - Diary/Candle Day
• February 14th - Valentine's Day
• March 14th - White Day
• April 14th - Black Day
• May 14th - Rose Day
• June 14th - Kiss Day
• July 14th - Silver Day
• August 14th - Green Day
• September 14th - Photo/Music Day
• October 14th - Wine Day
• November 14th - Movie Day
• December 14th - Hug Day

It might be good to note that since Korea is a largely Buddhist or aethiest country, that Christmas is not really a family centered day for anyone who isn't Christian, but rather a day for couples to spend time together. 

Paying

It's also useful to note that splitting the bill, or "Dutch pay" is uncommon, usually the man will pay for most, if not all, of the costs on the date. If the man pays for movie tickets then the woman will cover the bill for dinner, so that it ends up being almost equal. Most of the time they don't want the girl to pay. Take a look at this graph:

*source

78% of men, and 79% of women think that men should pay a little more on a date. Only 3% of men think that they should go Dutch, compared to the 10% of women, and 19% of men and 11% of women think the guy should pay for everything.

That should be all for this topic but I've missed anything let me know in the comments!

Here are the resources I used for this chapter:

1. Different types of blind dating
2. More on the 3 Day Rule (it's pretty amussing tbh)
3. More on the monthly holidays

And although I didn't explicitly use it, this is a cool article if you want to know more about dating customs and typical attitudes or expectations that Korean men (and women too, really) might have while dating!

so i know i said i would update this after a week but that somehow turned into almost a year oops. basically i graduated high school and went on holiday for a month then did nothing for 3 months because i was finally free!!!!!!!!! and then i got caught up in uni, but now that the semester is about to end i thought i would do this before my exams start haha 

i hope you guys dont hate me lmao thanks for waiting 10 years <3