"The first time we met it was at Sungmin's apartment, that's her brother."
"Mhm"
"He and I, we developed a strong friendship over that period and we hung at his place or my place all the time. He was always introducing me to new people, every weekend it was basically a new face."
"Oh, how so?"
"Well, he has a lot of friends living in Gwangju, that's where he is originally from. And then, last August, his sister Yena moved in with him. She came from Gwangju because she turned 18 and she wanted to study in Seoul. She wants to teach preschool. At least that's what she told me when we met, but honestly, she hasn't done much regarding her studies. I think she will be taking her first year classes all over again. I know it's only March and she still has time to turn things around but somehow I don't see it...." Joy then stopped with her monologue and smiled at dr. Kim.
"I'm guessing that's not the information you were looking for."
The doctor leaned in his chair and calmly replied with a smile:
"Everything you want to talk about, we can discuss. Would you like to discuss her school record?"
"No. It's not relevant. I mean, it's more of me saying something about her character. She is able to study, she can do great things but... She gets so easily distracted and manipulated and she easily gives up..."
"Is that something that you mind about her? That she easily gives up?"
"Yeah... Mainly because she gave up on me easily."
"Oh?"
"You know that it took me three weeks just to take her out?"
"Well, I mean, some people need time and courage to ask someone out so..."
"No, I meant... For three weeks she was stalling to go out with me on a date."
"What do you mean?"
"I asked her out and yeah.... Then it took her three weeks to finally go out with me."
"Okay, and tell me why didn't you just tell her that you don't want her to stall for so long?"
"Because I didn't want to scare her... I didn't want her to think I'm a creep who wants her to force her to go out with me. I decided to be patient. " Joy spoke solemnly.
She then added:
"And the only reason why I waited for three weeks was because she never said "Hey, listen Joy, I don't want to go out with you after all"."
"People sometimes don't do that directly, but give clues because they think it will be less awkward if they do so."
"Yeah, I can understand that, but I don't know... I never got a strong vibe from her that said "keep out"... And I was foolish enough because I thought "Well, maybe she's just shy, maybe she needs time to warm up to someone before she goes out with them, maybe I should just be patient".... And also, my ego. My ego never fails to make a fool out of me."
"As in?"
"As in... Ah, something that we've already discussed - I couldn't let myself be hurt again. So I delayed it altogether. I didn't want my ego and my pride to be hurt... I was ready to wait longer because I thought that maybe things would turn around. Maybe she would warm up to me.... But she never did. Not in the way I wanted her to, anyway..."
"What happened on the first date?"
"Well, I took her out to a pancake bar that was near her and Sungmin's apartment. I actually live relatively close to them so it wasn't far for me either. We met up in front of her building." Joy then sighed as she continued to remember that day.
She then continued:
"So, my first impression that I had when I met her was that she can easily catch your attention. She really knows how to work the room. You can talk to her and be funny around her all you want, but if she is not feeling it, she is definitely not feeling it and she will give you the cold shoulder. She doesn't feel embarrassed doing so. If she is not feeling the atmosphere in the room, then the room could be dead-silent, no matter the number of people in the it. And when I met her, four weeks before the pancake date, I came to a party at Sungmin's place and a lot of people were there. But she caught my eye. She was beautiful. A pretty face, an infectious smile, a sensible dress sense... It just all added up and I wanted to make a move on her. I usually use my charm and sense of humor when I want to accomplish this but she wasn't biting and I felt a bit down...."
Joy added: "So then I moved away from her and started to interact with the rest of the room. That's when she noticed me. That's when started to laugh at my jokes and when she started to give me more eye contact.... She started to warm up to me and my jokes. And that's when I decided - okay, I might be into this girl... She is giving me mixed signals, kinda, sorta... but, I don't know what I'm feeling just yet. And I don't want to get hurt just yet. It was very confusing but I just found her very interesting"
"So... You made a move on her even though there was a possibility you could get hurt and you wanted to avoid getting hurt. How come? How come you decided to make a move on her anyway?"
"Well, I don't know... After Yoona, I kinda wanted to have a bit of fun, I wanted to... I don't know, "explore my situation" It was all supposed to be fun. And I didn't think I would get rejected so easily. I thought I would just... You know... Cruise around, heh... But like I said, after the initial rejection I received, I wanted to be patient so I continued... And after a week of talking through private DMs on our social media, I was like "Okay Joy, you can do this, you can ask her out"."
"And what were her excuses for delaying your meeting for three weeks?"
"Well, mostly like last minute stuff, always something along the lines of "Oh, I forgot I had something scheduled today, I forgot to tell you, talk to you later".... At first I was like "Yeah, sure", but later on it just got annoying because I thought she did not know how to reject me and I openly told her "Hey, if you don't want to see me, it's okay, I just thought it would be fun for us to hang out together"."
"Did she say anything when you said that?"
"Suddenly, the conversation got serious. Like real serious. She said she wanted to know why I wanted to go out of her... She wanted to know if I asked her out because we could hang out as friends or because I wanted something more... I told her I didn't know just yet and I just wanted to hang out, no strings attached, no pressure. Which technically wasn't a lie. I found her interesting and I just wanted to hang out to see what I felt. She said that for her hanging out, no strings attached... That that was okay.... And so we agreed to go out. And that's when we met up and went to the pancake bar."
"And how did that go?"
"Well, it was awkward. I'm a talker. I can talk a lot. But I can also listen if someone wants to talk as well. And I try to open up as many subjects as possible so that the person who is talking to me can feel free and talk about whatever they want to talk about. I'm an icebreaker hehe... And I just don't like an awkward room with an awkward silence in it, but... Yena was not talkative at all. No matter how much I tried, every so often there would just be an awkward silence between us and I thought that that was just her way of saying "Look, this is not going anywhere, you should stop trying.". And I wanted to stop trying, I seriously did... But, then... We were getting out of the bar and we were parting our ways and she asked me: "Hey, why don't you come over to my place?"
"Oh?"
"Yeah! That's what I thought! I mean... If the whole date hasn't served any purpose, why invite me to your place....?"
"Interesting..." the doctor acknowledged.
"I know.... And I went with her... I thought "Maybe this isn't so bad.... Maybe she's generally just not a talker... But what does that benefit me in the grand total scheme of things? Do I want her to be talkative? If yes, what for? So we can further our "relationship"? Why would I want to do that if the plan was to just have fun...?" But, when she asked me to come over to her place I caved and I decided "Well, let's see where this goes!" The weirdest part was that when we got there, Sungmin was there. And I thought, well, since she invited me to come over to their place, she would want to talk to me in private or in general... But nope! We got to their place and she straight up walked into her room, leaving me confused with Sungmin. She only exited her room later and talked to me nonchalantly like nothing happened... I don't know... I was insecure at the time and I yearned her attention. Whatever she gave me, a glance, a simple word, I would eat it up like a hungry puppy.... I hate myself for that, but it couldn't be helped back then.... I didn't want to be rejected, my pride could not take it...."
"Understandable." Dr. Kim nodded his head.
Joy then went on to describe several more situations and interactions between herself and Yena, most of them happening at house parties set up by Sungmin. The last one was about how Joy and Yena spent the night together at Yena and Sungmin's place:
"So basically we all went out into this bar. They played loud dance music and we all got drunk and danced basically the whole night. And up until that evening, there was no actual physical or sexual tension between Yena and me, at least not from her perspective. But at one moment, she just grabbed me by the waist and we started to dance together. Like close. Like really, extremely close. We held each other while dancing, looking at each other intensely in the eye. 10 minutes later we get out of the club, just me and her. I thought, this is it, we're going to go to my or her place and you know.... get it on...." Joy sighed once again and then continued:
"However.... ugh... in the cab she drunkenly and out of the blue started to talk about her exes. How they were all terrible, selfish, how they treated her like dirt. How one of them made her feel so vulnerable that she can't fathom doing anything with anyone for a long time and how she just can't imagine herself with anyone at all... She was being very melodramatic about it as well. And that's when I thought "well... shit, I'm not going to get anything tonight, am I?".... We came to her place, she decided she wanted to sit down and talk.... We talked about some very random topics before she said "I'm tired, I want to go to sleep, wanna sleep next to me?". I agreed, secretly hoping that maybe this was it... A connection? Something? Anything? But as soon we were in bed she fell asleep. And even though nothing happened, I kinda felt used... Like she used me as someone to complain about her exes and then "bam!", sleeping...."
Joy felt drained after delivering all those stories and just sat there for a while.
"Are you okay?" The doctor asked after a while sympathetically. "Do you need anything?"
"I need some rest... This was tiring."
"Okay, that's good. You will get the rest you need as soon as you get home. This was good for our first session Joy and I don't think we need to dig in more for today. I will be needing to see you next week at this exact same time."
"Oh, okay..." Joy replied sheepishly.
"We are discussing your feelings and we are discussing whatever you've experienced. You are opening up and you are admitting to things. Self-observation and realizing who we are and what we do is one of the more important things for us to understand in order for us to move forward in life. If we want to know how to fix something broken, we need to look back at where and how we made that thing broken. Only then can we utilize our brains and willpower to fix it and only then can we use that thing to its full potential."
Joy sat there silently. The realization hit her hard. Yeah... I need to know AND understand what happened properly. I need to figure out who and what I am before moving on and looking forward.
"I agree," she replied with a more encouraged smile this time. "Thank... Thank you, doctor... I know this was our first session but... But it felt good to let go of some of my baggage... And to truly try to grasp what it means... I... Thank you."
"No problem Joy heh" The doctor proudly smiled. "I will be seeing you next week. In the meantime, regarding your sleep - first I want to try some non-drug-related solutions. Tell me, do you eat a lot before you go to sleep? Some people like to eat before they go to sleep while watching a movie or a TV series or something similar, so that's why I'm asking.... Heh, I've made this mistake myself plenty of times"
"Yeah.." Joy admitted quietly.
"Okay, then let's try this - eat your dinner, eat it normally as you always do but try to have less snacks while watching movies before going to sleep. Food keeps us awake, and even when it doesn't, if you overeat, it can give your brain and body a ton to work with, hence sometimes you can have nightmares... While not completely scientifically confirmed, some studies have found that for certain people - a lot of food before going to sleep can cause more nightmares and a generally bad sleeping habit."
"That makes sense, okay..."
"And try not to look at screens at least half an hour before going to sleep - that too can cause your brain to go into overdrive and keep you awake for a while. So yeah, let's try those two things before giving out sleeping pills or anything else, okay? I am not a fan of unnecessarily filling a person's body with drugs when there can be a better way heh"
"Oh, okay, thank you doctor Kim, I will be seeing you next week then"
Joy bowed her head and left the office.
I mean.... As far as first sessions go, I think that was okay... He listened to me, he gave some solid advice, he let me talk for a while... Like, for a great while... And he was generally helpful... Okay, I think this is not all that bad and I think I will listen to his advice. Now let's go home and rest. I feel I could really use some of that sleep he recommended. Joy thought to herself as she went home.