does marriage maketh an 아줌마?

When I first arrived in Korea, an innocent babe in the land of morning calm, I was quickly and directly told (no holds barred - it might have even been a taxi driver who was the first to burst my bubble of youth) that at 28 years old , I was no babe, and if I didn't hop to it, secure myself a man and get married, all chances of happiness would clearly be off the menu for this...err...babe.

So yes, although innocent (I knew next to nothing about Korea, Korean food, people, thinking, culture, language...you get the idea...innocent to the point of blissfully completely unaware...some might also call this stupid, but I prefer the slightly loftier term of ignorant) I became quickly educated - in a slammed in your face kind of way - that marriage needed to be seriously considered, because this was a time game (which up until my arrival in Korea, I had no idea there even WAS a game) and I needed to start rolling dice, picking my players and preferably coming out a winner all within the year.

Needless to say, I just thought (remember, I still really did consider myself an innocent babe at this point) that it was kinda cute that so many people - taxi drivers (my biggest advocates for marriage - and occasionally, bless them, even shyly - or was that slyly - hinting that they were not married either...making eye contact via that post-box slot of a rear view mirror), my team of ladies at the supermarket I shopped at (fresh vegetables and the 떡 makers in particular), the local 노래방 proprieter (but that might have just been because I would frequently turn up, the foreigner, all alone, single, just me, 혼자... to belt out my best George Michael and sometimes a mean Carpenters - and I just think he was deathly concerned) but I digress...what I am trying to say, and seem to be straying from saying, is that I quite enjoyed all this attention...and thought it was exceptionally nice that so many people were taking such an interest in my marriageable-ness.

Six and a half years later, I am not so sure about any of this. I am now the ripe old age of 35(한국나이로) and it somewhat concerns me that now people don't even ask me if I am married. It's like this fabulous fountain of interest in my marriage well-being, which to be honest, has been flowing strong and steady for the last 4 or 5 years, suddenly seems to have dried up. Like I said, this does concern me because it raises the question, why? Why has the interest not just peetered out, still trickling and even surging occasionally but instead, completely disappeared?

Do people now just look at me, and assume I MUST be married (the silver hairs that have sneakily elbowed in on my babe-a-licious youthful brown being the dead giveaway) or is it that they just...know? They know I am in this wasteland of my mid-thirties, and unmarried. It's possibly something the experienced taxi 아저씨 can just instinctively smell on me. Or do I just quite simply give off the 아줌마 vibe with my 'I take no crap mr. taxi driver' stare that fills up the post-box slot mirror discouraging everything from polite conversation to even a tentative smile.
This is the mystery I am trying to unravel.

I remember post-complete dry up, I was taking a bus from 천안 to 서울, and as we were gathering up our things to get off the bus, the bus 아저씨 called out to me (traveling with my (male) friend, which in his mind may instantly have equaled boyfriend/husband/lover/good time gigilo boy - well, that last one was more my own made up idea) and said "아줌마! 빨리빨리!" Well, I quite indignantly looked at him and said "아줌마 아니라 아가시 인데요!" to which he giggled - that's right giggled, and from that day on, whenever he saw me he would make a pointed show of yelling out - from wherever he might be in the bus terminal - "안녕하세요 아가시"

So here I am, in Korea, not really an 아가시 yet not really qualifying for the heavier responsibility of the married 아줌마 either. I float, lost and confused as I ponder what it is exactly that I am. I miss the conversations about my future marriage (that I had never even thought about before and had to make stuff up to keep the conversation going) , the fascination with my age - which is a classic indication I need to 빨리빨리, but at the same time - "oh how surprising that you are that age when you look barely older than a babe in the woods!" And last of all, the feeling that what a catch I must be if everyone wants to say something to me about my prospects of marriage.
I miss it. I miss it all. And although personally, it doesn't really worry me whether I am married or not, it worries me that no one else seems to care anymore.

~want to quickly apologise for any typos - in English or Korean...especially in Korean...oops!