I read this post a while ago. This woman was basically saying,

“How come women who aren’t even as pretty as me end up marrying rich guys?”

She said she was 25, really beautiful, and wanted a husband who made at least $500,000 a year. She’d dated a businessman making about $250,000, but that wasn’t enough for the life she wanted.

Then this guy replied, saying he made the kind of money she was after. His point was,

“Your looks have maybe five or ten good years left. My income will probably keep going up. So why would I buy when I could rent?”

Someone wrote back having a go at him, too. I don’t know if it was the same woman. The writing sounded different, so I thought maybe someone else had written it from her side.

Anyway, the main point was, “You’re so sure her looks will fade, but how do you know you’ll keep making money?”

And yeah, I could see their point. But I still thought, well, at least he might make more money, but nobody stops ageing.

Then I thought of that thing people say: men needs money, women needs pretty face.

You hear it all the time in Korea. It sounds shallow, and people might not want to admit they think that way, but it comes up a lot when they start talking seriously about marriage. And I get it. You need money to live. Once you’re living together and paying for everything, you find out pretty quickly how much it matters.

In Korea, we’ve got matchmaking agencies that check where you went to uni, where you work, whether you’re married—all that stuff. Then there’s your age, what you look like, your personality. You look through people’s profiles and try to find someone who fits what you’re after. I can see why people do it. If you don’t get many chances to meet anyone, or you’re just tired of wasting your time, why wouldn’t you try it? And meeting that way doesn’t mean you can’t fall in love.

But what happens if the thing you picked them for changes? What if it’s gone altogether? And if you’ve got a kid by then, what about them? They didn’t ask for any of this.

I know, people marry for love and still split up. But if you mainly chose each other because you ticked certain boxes, and then you don’t tick those boxes anymore, what’s left? Do you still care enough about each other to want to get through it?

And I keep thinking about the people you’d never even meet because they didn’t fit what you thought you wanted. You know when someone isn’t your type, but you keep thinking about them anyway? They make some stupid little joke, and later on you remember it and laugh to yourself. You don’t even really know what it is about them. You just like them. Which is a bit confusing, because if someone had described them to you beforehand, you probably wouldn’t have been interested.

Maybe it’s something about the way they are. Something you’d never get from reading a profile. Or maybe when you’re having a rough time or feeling lonely, someone being a little kind to you can mean a lot.

And honestly, do we even know our own type that well?

You think you like quiet people. Then you meet one and you’re bored out of your mind. You think someone who talks a lot would drive you nuts, but then this person starts talking and you don’t want them to stop. Or you say you don’t like people with strong opinions. Then you meet someone who actually listens to you but can still tell you what they think, and you like that. It makes you feel like you can count on them.

So we all say we know what we want. But how do you know how you’ll feel about someone until you’ve actually been around them? If you cross them off the list before that, you never get to find out.

There’s this Korean film, Marriage Is a Crazy Thing. I always think of it when I’m talking about this.
Yeon-hee meets this uni lecturer, Joon-young, on a blind date, and they fall in love. But she marries a doctor because he can give her a more comfortable life. Then she keeps seeing Joon-young after she’s married. She wants the money and the life that comes with it, but she can’t let go of him either. So she tries to have both.

I think sometimes we expect our feelings to sort themselves out once we’ve made the sensible choice. Like,

“This person’s better for me. We’d have a good life together. I’ll probably end up loving them.”

But you can tell yourself all that and still want to be with someone else. Your heart can be a real pain like that.

So maybe that’s part of the answer to the woman’s question.

Why do rich guys marry women she thinks aren’t as pretty as her?

Well, we haven’t met those women. We have no idea what they’re like. There could be all sorts of things about them that someone would fall for. If you ask someone why they love their partner, they’ll say things like, “They’re kind. I feel comfortable with them. We get along really well.”

Okay, but you could meet someone else who’s kind and easy to talk to. Would you feel the same way about them? I don’t know. I still can’t really explain why it has to be that particular person. But I just know that when I’m with them, whatever’s been weighing on me feels a bit lighter. If they’re on my side, I feel like I can get through just about anything. I feel better about myself, too. Like I’m a better person, like I can do more than I thought I could.

I just know who I want beside me right now. It’s not some “ideal person” who ticks every box. It’s the one who makes me feel happy and safe just by sitting next to me.

That’s ‘my’ person.