In the midst of moving to a new home in Los Angeles, I happenned upon a memory that for the longest was a faint aspect of my romantic life. And it came about because of endurable passion. I was on a cruise in the Summer of 2012. In Alaska. For two weeks. I had no real idea why anyone would allow something for so long there but hey, it wasn’t the Iditarod. T’was only a cruise. Anyhow, I was there with my family but it was also an opportunity for me to get to know some friends. One of whom I feel as if I had a romantic encounter. Her name was Jinhee Park. She had come to the cruise with a group of Korean classmates and I had witnessed them giving free back massages. Naturally, I had scoliosis in Skagway, so upon re-embarking upon the Princess Cruiseline, I went about asking ever so meekly if I could get a back massage. Jinhee gave me one. (Over the shirt, you pervs.) It felt fun. Funny also. I wasn’t even doing stand-up back in the day, but I made her and a couple of the others laugh. Which garnered them the interest to get a picture with me. I thought that was the end of it. And usually it is. Which is nice. But then, what should happen but me coming across some of her friends in the Teen’s club. I forgot what the other two girls were named but I befriended them as well. I think I’ll refer to them as Jenny and Cop girl. You will likely not hear much of them here, but nevertheless, I surely hope that their own lives are going well. After a couple of instances walking around the cruise ship with those two, they revealed to me that Jinhee was a bit attracted to me in the most surprising way. Being that it was a way. I never really expected to be attracted to by anyone being that my last relationship ended in me realising my ex was using me. No names, no blame. But those ladies inspired me to go ahead and hang out with Jinhee on my own. This was all very new to me, even if it was just another hang-out. I was a strange child in that I found myself falling for a foreign girl… And I still wanted to keep in touch with her. We played Jenga, had ice cream, listened to some live jazz and tried to talk, in spite of the language barrier.. She almost invited me into her bedroom. But she had roommates and didn’t want to bother them. And I was too chicken-shit to bother my own roommate (Mom) to ask her to leave for what surely could’ve been some awkward PG-13 action. Luckily, I was left with an opportunity. I asked her “Can I kiss you?” And she said, “Yes.” We did for five to eleven seconds. Then we bid each other good night. And that was the last I talked to her in person. Her segment of the cruise ended early as we reached the final destination. I somehow found her collectively with her class group readying to leave the ship. Looking back on that moment, I was fully capable of pulling a total Dustin Hoffman and screaming her name, followed by running away with her on some Alaskan iceberg and being with her happily forever. But I didn’t. Because in real life? That’s just weird. Instead, I saw her exit the ship and enter the port center with her green jacket weaving into a whole sea of others that made it impossible from thirteen decks up to distinguish who she was anymore. She never did look back to wonder if I was looking for her. That hurt. But not much. We shared email addresses and later on we had some email correspondence. For a bit it lasted pretty well. We talked about similar interests, school, I sent even a care package of snacks and some moose lava lamp thing. She introduced me to Busker Busker and also she emailed me on New Year’s. But I’m leaving out plenty of details, I’m certain. Here’s one I won’t. I actually wrote Jinhee a love song. Probably one of the first I wrote. (Similar actions dedicated to other crushes were echoed by this crucial decision. I won’t look at it myself, but here it is, if you want to see how ditsy I was for love. I feel like her lip balm was napalm because it blew me away how from kissing her, our friendship would distance.