Me: Jonhabonhogamoeiyo?
Beauty: Do you even know my name?
Me: No. Do you know mine?
Beauty: Arnab.
Me: Oh...
Her voice was so melodious I had failed to capture the meaning behind the sounds she was making when she was first introducing herself. I gave her my phone and she dialed her number. For the follow up a few days later, I used a non verbal and harmless text message to query whether she was free for dinner.
She was grossly offended that I had offered her free dinner as "Korean girls are not so cheap". This time the miscommunication could be attributed to the language barrier. Tragically, the story came to a premature end before we could become Seoul-mates.
*****
"To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time." - Cornelia Otis Skinner