Hanspot: Dating “Mannerism,” Marriage through Defeat
1 is the Lonely Number
Marriage is a tricky affair in South Korea. It isn’t so easy to nail it as two people who love each other coming together. In fact, very few Koreans would describe the event as that and would admit to feeling many more than the pressure of commitment when it comes to that decision. Marriage bundles up so many auxiliary decisions - compatibility of families, socioeconomic standing, disruption of current lifestyles, educational and professional considerations, and sibling(s) status. Can you feel the headache yet? Koreans certainly can and this reality is heavily impacting the plummeting rates of marriage in the country.
What to do? Source
I’ll give you a pretty typical male perspective. By the time an average man has gone through the educational system, committed his mandatory service in the military, and worked for a few years, enough to have some financial security and independence, they’re likely to already have hit the early 30s. Add on a couple of dating trials and you’re looking at a whole generation of men in their mid-to-late 30s who are anxious about marriage.
This is where people take drastic measures, usually submitting to situations akin to arranged marriages or, and this is what I’ll be focusing on today, marriages where men and women just resign to an “eh, okay” type of situation.
What to do? Source
Now this all sounds so dystopic to many who live in more socially free nations like the US and around Europe and Latin America. For many of us, marriage has a spiritual component that prevents us from just marrying anyone. But in Korea, it still remains highly transactional and objective due to many complex reasons.
They all cumulate to a very common situation where people quickly grow tired of the baggage and pressure that comes along with dating and especially dating with the intent to find a life partner. You’ll hear repeated stories of couples almost set to say their vows but due to family influence or a combination of the aforementioned considerations, fail to make the final step and are cast into trying again. The problem comes down to dating as a personal choice but marriage as a family one.
Dejected Men
If you ever meet a single man in his mid/late-30s, you may hear this phrase - "Dating Mannerism.” Unlike what the literal words actually mean, the phrase in Korean signifies the idea that a man will marry whoever he ends of dating next. This person is likely sick and tired of the arduous journey of trying to find a spouse and being shut down again for one reason or another. As such, many have found it easier to just announce before dating another person to everyone, including family and friends, that the next one will be the final one. It’ll become very explicit in his conversations with his date that marriage is the ultimate goal.
What to do? Source
It’s a self-perpetuating wheel of trauma as people commiserate their unfortunate and doomed fates to marry without real choice or freedom. Despite this younger generation’s wishes to depart from the ultra-conservative ideals of marriage of their parents, they find themselves imprisoned by inescapable pressures.
What do you think? Can you empathize with these sorts of bachelors? Has the awfulness of dating in a conservative society ever encouraged you to simply give up? Let me know your thoughts below.
Are you ready for a rant?
This one strikes a chord. I'm one of them. I'm tired and I'm probably just going to marry someone in the next couple of years because 'Eh, okay'. I feel like marriage in Asian cultures is just an entirely different ball game. I've been faced with the pressure of getting married since I was 21.
Let me give you a pretty typical Indian female perspective. Said Indian female has been sent to university because her value in the marriage market goes up when she has a degree. When she is in her final year, her parents bring up marriage and she resists, if she is allowed that freedom. If not, she's married before she graduates. So many of my classmates have been 'married off' into families where they're not allowed to put their education to use in the real world.
Others have more liberal upbringings but still face the 'marriage pressure'. If you have a boyfriend, the parents are asking when you will get married. Why else would you have a boyfriend at 26. If you don't have a boyfriend, then the situation is 'Well, you haven't found someone for 25 years of your life. What makes you think you'll find one now? Might as well meet and marry a guy that we introduce you to'.
I'm incredibly fortunate and don't have parents with ultra-conservative marriage ideals. They shield me from the society I live in. They shield me from aunts, uncles and relatives who all have the same question on their lips. Apart from asking my parents why they're failing at their duty, that is. At the same time, they're worried. And I can see the worry. And it pains me that they think they've gone wrong somewhere in raising me.
All my friends are either married, scrambling to get married or worrying about having to agree to an arranged marriage. It's making me immune to the idea of a marriage. It seems like way too much collective fuss about something personal.
Now throw a boyfriend who doesn't come from the same culture and has none of these problems into the picture. It's mind-numbingly painful to manage the two sides.
I'm ripe in the Indian marriage market. I've got to go to three weddings of three really good friend over the rest of the year. But I've got my answers to 'Manou, why are you not getting married? Don't you have a boy on the sly?' at hand - I drink my wine and slowly walk away.
Ok, rants ends. Maybe you'll want to think twice about asking people to write their thought below next time ;)
I love me a good rant @manouche, but this is honestly a very thoughtfully structured explanation that could easily become multiple posts.
I definitely understand a great deal of what you're dealing with and I can see it all around me when it comes to friends and family. I have an older female cousin in her mid 30s and every day seems to be an emotional war zone of family anxiety, even though she owns a very successful business and is in no rush to settle down.
The educational qualification for marriage is a great point and I see many Korean families in particular dolling out 100s of thousands of dollars for an Ivy League education that they have absolutely no expectations for other than appeasing their daughter's potential spouse. The lack of professional expectation is really damning and it is painful to watch the people who shield you suffer the barrage of pressure.
I will say thought that there is hope. Up until the moment I myself said my vows, the question of marriage was a huge anxiety for my and my now wife's family. If I can pass off any semblance of advice, it is to focus almost completely on yourself and your wellbeing in terms of social life and work. I honestly don't see any way of really mitigating this part of more conservative cultures and temporary escape is the best course of action until you're really ready to 'settle down.' When you finally do, the only thing anyone cares about is if you're healthy/happy.
Until the question of children...............
Love how you put 'settle down' in quotes. Because I hate the term!!
My flatmate in Seoul is 32 and one of the smartest people I know. She's started her own company and has developed an impressive portfolio within a year and yet all she hears from people around her is 'When do you get married?'.
Oh well, thanks for the reassuring words @hansikhouse. My strategy is to escape by leaving the country at any opportunity that presents itself. Then I'm not so worried because with society it truly is 'out of sight, out of mind'. They only care when they can see you stand out in their surroundings.
Let's keep children for another post ;)
어떻게 보면 굉장히 현실적인 글 같기도 합니다.... 저는... 음 다른 이유로 결혼을 못하고 혼자 살고 있긴 합니다만..... 한국사회에서 결혼은 개인과 개인이 같이 사는게 아닌 집안과 집안의 결합으로 보기에.... 더 보수적이 될 수 밖에 없는거 같습니다. 그러다 보니 조건을 따지는것도 많고 앞으로 바뀌지 않을까 싶습니다.... 결혼을 이제 집안단위의 결합으로 보는것은 조금.... 느슨해지지 않을까 생각중입니다...
한국사회를 어느정도 이해할라고 하는데요. 사랑, 결혼 스펙과 연결이 되는것이 느슨하지는 생각이 더욱 커졌으면 좋겠습니다.
이게 비단 한국에서만 국한되는 일인지요? 가족, 사회, 경제적 지위뿐 아니라 교육의 질, 형제 그런 부분들을 외국은 크게 고려하지 않는가요?
미국에서는 어느정도 비슷한 사람끼리 만날 수 있는데요,미국에서는 가족 멤버끼리도 개인의 삶이라는 것 매우 강해서요, 개인의 결정을 더욱, 중요하게 생각합니다. "그 사람이 행복하면 됬다" 이 생각이 더욱 강합니다.