I spent too long staring at my reflection in the subway window

That weird feeling walking down Gangnam Station

I found myself walking around Gangnam Station on a random Tuesday, which I think was a mistake if you’re trying to avoid thinking about your own face. Every other storefront seems to be advertising some kind of discount or package deal for students who just finished their exams. It felt like walking through a gauntlet of advertisements. I saw one place near the main exit boasting about 700,000 won for nose tip surgery, which honestly sounded cheap enough to be suspicious, though I suppose that’s the starting point for most people. I remember looking at the posters and feeling that familiar, slightly uneasy pressure to just walk into a clinic and see what they’d say about my profile.

The reality of those consultation rooms

I’ve been to a few clinics around the Gangnam and Sinsa areas over the years. The consultation process is always strange. You walk in, the waiting room is filled with people either wearing masks or looking like they just stepped out of surgery with bandages, and then you’re sat down with a consultant who is usually much more focused on the billing side than the doctor is. One place told me that the price could fluctuate depending on whether they used silicone or just reshaped my existing structure. I remember being quoted around 450,000 won just for alar reduction, which didn’t include the rest of the work. It’s funny how they throw these numbers around like they’re talking about coffee prices, but for me, it was months of thinking.

Why I keep comparing myself to everyone else

It’s hard not to look at influencers or even people on the street and wonder if they had the same procedure I’m considering. You see those videos, the ones where people film their entire recovery process—even the ones where they show up with bandages on their faces—and it makes the whole thing seem so routine. I remember reading about a clinic near Gangnam Station that even featured international influencers in their marketing. It’s effective, I guess. You see someone who looks ‘fixed’ and you assume the process is just a simple transaction. But then you hear stories about revision surgeries, or that term ‘contracted nose,’ and it makes you want to crawl back into your shell. Re-doing a surgery sounds like a nightmare compared to just living with what you have.

Sitting in the chair and waiting for an answer

I had a moment once where I was sitting across from a surgeon who just looked at me and said, ‘We’ll have to see once we get in there.’ It’s that exact uncertainty that stays with you. It’s not like buying a product where you know exactly what the specs are. It’s your own cartilage, your own skin, and this vague promise that it’ll look better once the swelling goes down. I walked out of that appointment without booking anything. I spent the next two hours just sitting at a cafe near the station, looking at my phone, trying to decide if I was being too cautious or just smart.

Walking away with more questions than answers

I’m still not sure if I’m going to go through with it. Sometimes I look at my reflection and feel completely fine, and other times I see that one profile angle and think about that 700,000 won quote again. It’s a weird mental loop. You see these clinics opening up, like the ones that popped up near Yeoksam-dong in August, and you realize how many people are doing this every single day. Is it just a standard maintenance thing now? I don’t know. I’m leaning toward doing nothing, but I know next month, when I’m back in the area for dinner, I’ll probably look at those windows again and wonder what might have happened if I’d just stepped inside.