A practicing lawyer, Park Soo-bin offers guidelines for dating while protecting oneself in a rough world by combining the two seemingly unrelated topics of romance and contracts. A practical introduction to love that can be provided only by a lawyer, who is trained to perceive the essence of conflicts, this work received explosive attention from amorous men and women nationwide during its original serialization in the daily Kyunghyang Shinmun. According to the author, the very moment that two people are in an ambiguous relationship beyond friendship and start to see each other regularly without expressly stating that they are dating or lovers is the beginning of negotiations. Just as we look through certified copies of registers before making rental contracts, we must check if the other person already has a lover, she stresses, and two-timing is tantamount to a double contract. In this way, Park delightfully turns dating and love upside down and prompts readers to see their flip side. In addition, as befits a practicing lawyer, she provides detailed instructions on how to deal legally with what does not constitute dating including dating violence, digital sexual crimes such as the circulation of illegal videos, and stalking. As such, this book is an indispensable dating guidebook for everyone who is on the cusp of romance…!
The most helpful introduction to love from a practicing woman lawyer
Even though we are not conscious of them as contracts, many parts of everyday life from selling and buying items to carrying out others’ requests and maintaining a married life actually constitute contracts. In addition, in many cases, disputes arise because things that, though unspecified in such contracts, quite naturally “should have been” performed by others have not been performed. Taking on various lawsuits related to contracts as a lawyer, the author has often thought to herself: “Why don’t we determine in detail what we and the other party want in the contract of love when the two parties in lawsuits have such different ideas even about a word or a sentence?”
People differ in their ways and forms of love. Each person has different expectations, and many lovers break up because they have failed to overcome such differences. If that is the case, how about earnestly communicating with the other person about the kind of relationship one wants before initiating romance, just as the two sides go through a negotiating process before signing a contract? Negotiations for creating a relationship of one’s own, not just following the rules defined by society, that is. How about negotiating in advance about what each person wants in terms of ways of maintaining love in the future, by saying things like “I don’t want to get married,” “I want to meet someone who wants to get married and start a family,” “I want to have sex after marriage,” or “I want an intimate relationship where we’ll see each other more than twice a week”?