Short Non-Fiction
They Say the World is Built for Two
Hotel beds are always too large for just me to sleep in. So incredibly comfortable yet strangely lonely, as if something is suddenly missing. Taxi drivers, restaurant servers, tour guides always look two seconds too long, like there is a part of me missing, something I don’t know of. As if I were somehow incomplete. As if there was something fundamentally wrong about enjoyment in solitude.
The subtle hints of life are meant to be enjoyed with someone else. Two bedside tables on each side of my bed. Two showers in a suite I booked just for myself, two chairs at the table and two seats next to each other on the plane, train, bus and ferry. Two stand-up paddleboards on the hotel beach. I only need one of them. The scooter I rent fits two people. The ticket seller asks if I came all by myself. Is that boldness, genuine confusion, concern, or something else? Something sinister, even? It makes me uncomfortable, but I fight it, smile as I take my ticket and go on about my day. The adventure that I call my life. So full, so beautiful, always and only mine.
You got a man? He asks. I have a little ring I got for my birthday from my best friends. Yes, I lie. Where is he? At home. I reply. Don’t have a boyfriend? So persistent. I do. I don’t. This man doesn’t know it. I lift my left hand, showing a silver ring with a small glass stone in the middle. A deeper lie. Do you have a man? I leave. I hear his steps behind me, but in a crowd, escaping is easy. Learning to appreciate the safety that overly filled public spaces present is a sign of becoming a woman. Everyone rushing only in the rhythmic ticking of their own watches. They don’t stop to notice that I’m here alone. No need to endure the uncomfortable determination of a man who doesn’t understand a woman’s no. No need to lie that I am taken, like I was a sheep already claimed by a shepherd.
A Twosome Place, the cafe next to my hotel in Seoul. A discount for two at the PyeongChang ski resort and another at a local, not-so-authentic Italian restaurant. Gosh, I miss home. There are countless arcades, and even more photo booths to capture time, shared by a pair. Gangnam, Itaewon, Myeongdong, and Dongdaemun. In all my favourite places in Seoul, there are couples holding hands, sitting by the river together, one’s head on another’s shoulder. Making Tteokbokki noodles by the Han River, enjoying the cherry blossoms, so in peace, as I run past, trying to beat my last week's PB. Just me, the rhythm of my feet, head clearer than ever.
Plans for yet another trip in my notebook. Realising distances are too long to see any friends. Thinking that if I weren’t alone, I could stay in a hotel right in the city centre for less than my hostel price. Realising, too, that tea ceremonies are only bookable for two people. Deciding to climb a mountain instead. 1200 meters of elevation. Peace, quiet, a sunset so beautiful I still wonder if it was real. My happy music fits just my taste. A good book, not about romance, but about life, so full of wonder.
A call in the middle of the night. Tears and shaking words from my best friend. The end of an era of a beautiful love story I truly hoped would last. My comforting words. Questions for what is to come. I’m left baffled. Lay awake for hours waiting for sleep. My two best friends, no longer a team? How is it that the love in one’s eyes can change so suddenly, almost overnight? That a tiny change in the way of life would change a feeling I knew was love. I doubt I could have been so wrong all along. How is it that one can love another one day, not the next? Isn’t the point of love that it doesn’t obey the laws of emotions? That it’s not fleeting but drowns you deep ever deeper, fills your lungs, your veins and the entirety, and doesn’t let go. It makes you obsessed, restless, at peace, productive, and so so incredibly stupid. It biologically rewires you, by the laws of optimisation and survival we like to call evolution.
To answer only to myself has always been such a gift. To give all my energy and love to the world, and receive even more. How can I love the world so unconditionally, when it keeps so subtly yet so loudly, and most annoyingly so persistently reminding me that no matter how complete I feel, until I am part of a team, there is something missing I could not know of? I only want you in my life if your presence is sweeter than my solitude. Words so soft, so reassuring, almost automatically in my mind whenever I was confronted with how I could never be complete by myself. Like Eve was created from Adam’s rib, the pieces of a puzzle are not complete alone. Will I always be treated as incomplete until I obey and walk the world with my better half by my side? But then again, at the end of the day, being alone is a small price to pay for peace.
All of a sudden, almost by accident, someone walks into my life. There is one bed just large enough to fit two people, on it two soft towels. On the table, two coffee cups, two chairs. Enough hangers for two, and of course, two bedside tables. This room is for two. Not three, not one, exactly two. The receptionist’s reaction is different when I tell him that I came with my man, not with a friend or alone. The owner of a Chinese restaurant puts one pair of chopsticks and one pair of Western utensils in the takeaway bag. He has respect, not interest, in his eyes. I ordered a vegetarian dinner special for two.
We filled tables and seats on trains, buses, and planes. We waltzed on lively, ancient plazas to live music under the beating sun. We fit in a bench by the beach perfectly, just the two of us. There are two ice cream flavours to choose from, so we get to try both of them. Two laptops on a table at a pub look intriguing, not lonely. Walking home after dark, and getting up late, suddenly becomes normal, not something to constantly be fighting against. And when we get to bed at midnight, both of the bedside tables are filled, and the bed doesn’t feel lonely, but just as it was designed to be.
On a mountaintop above the clouds, I rest my head on his shoulder—the one from whose rib I might have been created. It was a feeling of safety like no other, but more importantly, a sense of peace so sweet it tingled to the tips of my toes.
The subtle hints of life are meant to be enjoyed with someone else. Two bedside tables on each side of my bed. Two showers in a suite I booked just for myself, two chairs at the table and two seats next to each other on the plane, train, bus and ferry. Two stand-up paddleboards on the hotel beach. I only need one of them. The scooter I rent fits two people. The ticket seller asks if I came all by myself. Is that boldness, genuine confusion, concern, or something else? Something sinister, even? It makes me uncomfortable, but I fight it, smile as I take my ticket and go on about my day. The adventure that I call my life. So full, so beautiful, always and only mine.
You got a man? He asks. I have a little ring I got for my birthday from my best friends. Yes, I lie. Where is he? At home. I reply. Don’t have a boyfriend? So persistent. I do. I don’t. This man doesn’t know it. I lift my left hand, showing a silver ring with a small glass stone in the middle. A deeper lie. Do you have a man? I leave. I hear his steps behind me, but in a crowd, escaping is easy. Learning to appreciate the safety that overly filled public spaces present is a sign of becoming a woman. Everyone rushing only in the rhythmic ticking of their own watches. They don’t stop to notice that I’m here alone. No need to endure the uncomfortable determination of a man who doesn’t understand a woman’s no. No need to lie that I am taken, like I was a sheep already claimed by a shepherd.
A Twosome Place, the cafe next to my hotel in Seoul. A discount for two at the PyeongChang ski resort and another at a local, not-so-authentic Italian restaurant. Gosh, I miss home. There are countless arcades, and even more photo booths to capture time, shared by a pair. Gangnam, Itaewon, Myeongdong, and Dongdaemun. In all my favourite places in Seoul, there are couples holding hands, sitting by the river together, one’s head on another’s shoulder. Making Tteokbokki noodles by the Han River, enjoying the cherry blossoms, so in peace, as I run past, trying to beat my last week's PB. Just me, the rhythm of my feet, head clearer than ever.
Plans for yet another trip in my notebook. Realising distances are too long to see any friends. Thinking that if I weren’t alone, I could stay in a hotel right in the city centre for less than my hostel price. Realising, too, that tea ceremonies are only bookable for two people. Deciding to climb a mountain instead. 1200 meters of elevation. Peace, quiet, a sunset so beautiful I still wonder if it was real. My happy music fits just my taste. A good book, not about romance, but about life, so full of wonder.
A call in the middle of the night. Tears and shaking words from my best friend. The end of an era of a beautiful love story I truly hoped would last. My comforting words. Questions for what is to come. I’m left baffled. Lay awake for hours waiting for sleep. My two best friends, no longer a team? How is it that the love in one’s eyes can change so suddenly, almost overnight? That a tiny change in the way of life would change a feeling I knew was love. I doubt I could have been so wrong all along. How is it that one can love another one day, not the next? Isn’t the point of love that it doesn’t obey the laws of emotions? That it’s not fleeting but drowns you deep ever deeper, fills your lungs, your veins and the entirety, and doesn’t let go. It makes you obsessed, restless, at peace, productive, and so so incredibly stupid. It biologically rewires you, by the laws of optimisation and survival we like to call evolution.
To answer only to myself has always been such a gift. To give all my energy and love to the world, and receive even more. How can I love the world so unconditionally, when it keeps so subtly yet so loudly, and most annoyingly so persistently reminding me that no matter how complete I feel, until I am part of a team, there is something missing I could not know of? I only want you in my life if your presence is sweeter than my solitude. Words so soft, so reassuring, almost automatically in my mind whenever I was confronted with how I could never be complete by myself. Like Eve was created from Adam’s rib, the pieces of a puzzle are not complete alone. Will I always be treated as incomplete until I obey and walk the world with my better half by my side? But then again, at the end of the day, being alone is a small price to pay for peace.
All of a sudden, almost by accident, someone walks into my life. There is one bed just large enough to fit two people, on it two soft towels. On the table, two coffee cups, two chairs. Enough hangers for two, and of course, two bedside tables. This room is for two. Not three, not one, exactly two. The receptionist’s reaction is different when I tell him that I came with my man, not with a friend or alone. The owner of a Chinese restaurant puts one pair of chopsticks and one pair of Western utensils in the takeaway bag. He has respect, not interest, in his eyes. I ordered a vegetarian dinner special for two.
We filled tables and seats on trains, buses, and planes. We waltzed on lively, ancient plazas to live music under the beating sun. We fit in a bench by the beach perfectly, just the two of us. There are two ice cream flavours to choose from, so we get to try both of them. Two laptops on a table at a pub look intriguing, not lonely. Walking home after dark, and getting up late, suddenly becomes normal, not something to constantly be fighting against. And when we get to bed at midnight, both of the bedside tables are filled, and the bed doesn’t feel lonely, but just as it was designed to be.
On a mountaintop above the clouds, I rest my head on his shoulder—the one from whose rib I might have been created. It was a feeling of safety like no other, but more importantly, a sense of peace so sweet it tingled to the tips of my toes.