After Gyu-ho left, it became difficult to get out of bed in the morning. I was occasionally late for work. Sometimes I forgot to wash my face or shave—I even walked around all day with my zipper down or shirt buttons unaligned, only realizing it when I got back home. Routine hygiene tasks like shaving, clipping my nails, and brushing my teeth were starting to feel like lofty luxuries. As much as I may have looked like some hairy thug off the streets, I had actually never ever been absent during my twelve years of primary school and was slightly obsessive about showering before going out, which made these developments a new experience. I started taking home things from my desk at work. Soon after all my personal items were gone, I handed in my notice. I did not feel excited or hopeful or relieved. Just tired of everything.

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The third thing I did after splitting up with Gyu-ho was get on a plane to Bangkok.

If I had followed my initial plan, I would’ve lived an extremely enlightened and elegant life. Sleep from midnight to eight, make pourover coffees at home, exercise for three hours a day, learn the guitar, read all the books I wanted to, write, shop thriftily . . . But when I opened my eyes in the morning, I hadn’t a clue what time it was or whether the sun was even up. My circadian rhythms were completely shot. If, at first, I felt guilty about wasting my life away, I soon came to think, Well, whatever. Let’s see how far my money goes, let’s go as far as life will take me. And lying there on my Tempur bed, I came to the realization, Wow, this really is a very plush and perfect state of death, even boredom can get boring, and turned on my phone to do some half-hearted swiping on Tinder. Anyone would do, anyone to get me out of that coffin of a bed and into the world outside, from the rotting cesspool of my life to what lay beyond. I racked up swipes like I was repopulating the Earth. And when I got a match, I messaged, Where are you now? And finally dragged myself from bed to have bad sex for the sake of going outside.

I’d matched with him by pure mistake, back in Seoul.