::A Geek in Korea::

I went to hang out with a couple of foreigners and play Magic the Gathering. We all get along very well, but people that work together have to occasional drama issues involved in things inside and outside of the office. Since I tend to work at very small schools with little to no foreign teaching staff, I’m more or less immune to that sort of stuff. I sometimes get this feeling there can be drama that pushes peoples lives in one direction or another, and I’m just a solitary rock, unaffected by most of the tides.

I’m kind of happy that I don’t hang out with that many foreigners when the drama starts to get thick and serious. I’m busy most nights anyway, and when I’m not busy (the weekend), I don’t have the desire, or the money, to go out drinking late into the night anymore. I’ve got my wife, and my dog, and I’m buying an apartment. I don’t need the drama of social politics getting in the way of friendships, or worrying about who doesn’t like who in any meeting. There are all sorts of subtext I miss out on because I’m not filled in on drama, but I’d rather keep it that way than find out all the details and then have to watch my mouth constantly. I’m not good at that.

Hanging out once or twice a month and playing cards or doing something with people with similar interests is awesome. I also like my friendly coworkers, but I don’t imagine spending more time with them. If I ran into them on the street, I’d totally be friendly, and I wouldn’t avoid anyone’s attention for any reason, but at heart, I’m a pretty solitary person.

My wife is the same way. If we go out, we’re probably doing something together. We rarely run around in groups. It’s just our personality styles aren’t outgoing enough to need or want a flock of people around us. It’s not that we avoid groups, it’s just that we don’t call a bunch of people to see what they are up to either.

It’s consistently true that a social, outgoing person six months “off the boat” as it were will probably know more people in Korea than I do. If they go drinking once a weekend and meet a single new person and remember their name, they’ll know TONS more people than I do. If I was living in the States, it’d probably be exactly the same situation for me, so I don’t really worry about it very much.

That being said, there is an advantage to “knowing people”, because you can walk into certain situations with a good guess as to the outcome. The schools around the city I would need to look into to find a job are always blank slates, and I have to walk in and quickly try to grasp their insanity before I commit to employment. I would have walked into a nightmare situation the last time my school and I had a contract dispute and I wanted to find a better jon. Now, knowing people through the grapevine, I have crossed one school that wanted to hire me off the list the next time I negotiate. This is when knowing people really comes in handy.

It’s a balancing act, but as of now I’m negotiating my way carefully and slowly, but successfully.