My life as a 20-something single living in Japan: Experiments in dating

That last one basically sums up the New Year resolution of any foreigner teaching English in Japan.
(Photo courtesy of Ciaran. Resolution courtesy of one of his students)


Dating tends to be a pretty hot topic of conversation amongst foreigners who have spent a significant period of time living, working, or studying in Japan. Usually these topics fall into a few different categories. 1) (and maybe the most popular) the anomaly of pale, scrawny, bearded (unattractive) dudes dating gorgeous Japanese babes. It seems to be that Japanese girls are crazy for a foreigner boyfriend. Or else they have a bit of a twisted perception of foreign guys (see comic below). 2) That foreign guys have it extremely easy and we ladies are SOL because Japanese guys seemed to have 0 interest in foreign girls. 3) Being a foreigner girl in Japan sucks because the Japanese guys wont bother with you and the foreigners (scrawny bearded dudes and hotties alike) are too busy dating/bathing in the affection of Japanese girls to even notice you.
Which leads to the above New Years Resolution: I want to find a girlfriend or boyfriend. It becomes a take what you can get kind of situation.




But this post is not going to be a direct rehashing of the oddity of foreign dudes winning big. Instead, I had taken it upon myself to do a bit of participant-observation (heavy on the participant aspect) based research on Japanese dating life (or dating in Japan), and these are my observations.

First let me begin with a bit of a disclaimer. I didn`t really intend on going out and joining the dating scene, primarily because although I did pray/wish for a boyfriend at a Japanese shrine a few weeks back I really have a pretty low interest in actually having a boyfriend right now. And somehow I think the concept of dating (not as boyfriend and girlfriend would blow the minds off of any Japanese chap). And yet somehow i have managed to scrape up a few small experiences to share, probably because whenever I see a gorgeous guy I cant help but blabber to him about how gorgeous he is. And so here you have it.



Observations

1) Dating fellow Foreigners in Japan
So, I figure I might as well tackle my observations on dating a foreigner in Japan first because it is maybe the easier of my observations to summarize. So the biggest difficulty of trying to date a foreigner in Japan is primarily due to the fact that there are so few foreigners living in Japan. Even less if your standard of foreigner is someone from a Western country and your chances drop a bit lower if your standard is a foreigner from an English speaking country (but to be fair these foreigners living/working in Japan are fluent in English anyway) . Say you do happen to find a fellow foreigner remotely near you in Japan. For the sake of simplicity lets use my life in Yamaguchi ken as the source of the stats I`m going to throw out. So in a prefecture with a population of about 1,700,000 people, I personally know of only 33 male foreigners and 19 female foreigners. So that means (assuming I did my math correct) you have a 0.0011% chance of meeting a female foreigner and 0.0019% chance of meeting a foreign male. The next roadblock is the fact that of those 33 males 57% of them are in some type of relationship. So your 0.0019% chance just dropped down to a 0.00008% hope. And if you are looking for a female, you are even more out of luck seeing as of the about 19 female foreigners again about 57% of them are in some form of a relationship which brings you to about a 0.00004% prayer of meeting an eligible female foreigner. Those are some pretty tough odds to beat. So I can understand why a (scrawny pale bearded) guy would easily jump at the opportunity of dating a lovely Japanese girl and leave those foreign girls (wherever they may be) to fend for themselves. And Likewise I can understand why a Japanese girl would be so eager to date her maybe not so aesthetically pleasing foreign male, seeing as she beat the nearly needle in a haystack odds of even finding a single foreign male, there is no room for being picky.

Personally, dating another foreigner in Japan becomes increasingly tricky when you dont just include the numbers but also factor in things like personal qualities. Ladies, just because you are living in a foreign country doesn`t mean you will become so increasingly desperate that you will throw all your dating standards to the wind, will it? I dont think so, and I dont mean `dating standards` in a purely superficial way. Looks do count of course but you also need to take into consideration that of those handful of eligible foreign men are you really going to find someone who has similar hobbies, interest (other than Japan), etc. Well, maybe not. And so now we reach the point that it becomes clear that maybe we should broaden our scope to include Japanese people.


Why cant it be this easy? (Note: maybe next post I will teach you how to make some adorbz origami cats)


2) Dating Japanese guys in Japan
These first set of observations generally follow the basic set of observations as dating a foreigner but...a little tweaked. Again I am basing these observations on my own life living in rural Yamaguchi prefecture. So although it may be easier to find a Japanese person living in Japan there are still a few qualities that need to be satisfied. Primarily being, that s/he is within the right age range and that s/he is not in a relationship of some sort. And for a number of foreigners like myself, the next most important thing is that they have some English speaking abilities (the language of love can only get you so far).
And for the rest I guess I will tell you some of my observations of `dating` (not quite the right word, but you`ll see) guys in Japan.

Since my arrival in Japan I have gotten a number of Japanese chaps asking if I would be interested in being their girlfriend (Note: this is not me saying that I am unbelievably gorgeous, as you will soon see). This is a bit surprising as a number of women before me who have worked in Japan experienced a notable disinterest that Japanese guys have in foreign women, click here for an example (and I think it is fair to note that it was this blog that got me a bit curious about dating in Japan). So, who were these brave chaps that dared to ask this alien of a foreigner out? Well, for the most part they were my students, to make matters worse my students range from age 7-16. So, having a 8 year old ask me if I want to be his girlfriend kind of doesn`t count. And having one of my 16 year olds tell me that they like me and would like to be my boyfriend is pretty equally terrifying. Do they seriously not realize how much older I am!!!! I`m all for being a cougar, but a 16 year old and a 22 year old, that is just obscene not to mention illegal in America! Obviously I didnt date any of my students, but what I did take from these experiences was the notion that shyness doesn`t seem like a good enough excuse as to why Japanese men avoid foreign women like the plague. If my students can ask me out, I sure would like to think that someone my own age would also have the courage to ask me out.

Apparently not so much. As I said I have been here for nearly 6 months and aside from my students, I think I have been asked out maybe four times (and I am certain that at least one of those times it was more of a joke than in earnest). But finally, FINALLY, i have had a bit of an experience of what it is like to actively participate (and observe) a bit of a dating scene in Japan. So here comes the story:

Last weekend I had planned to go to Iwakuni (about 25 mins away by train) to meet up with a few of my ALT friends since it would be the first time seeing each other after a fairly long winter vacation. So we decided to have dinner and some drinks at a small but delicious Japanese restaurant. Originally I had know that I would be having dinner with my friend Kris, Anneli, and Sarah it wasn`t until a bit later that I found out our group would be a bit larger. So at the restaurant us four girls and Matt (an ALT in Iwakuni who I had just met) had just begun our meal when our friends Miguel, Richard, and Jason enter followed by a gorgeous (Gorgeous!) Japanese guy. And being my typical embarrassing self my natural instinct is to turn to my girlfriends and whisper in a not so quiet voice, `Oh my gosh, do you see this guy. Who is he!?!?!? He is gorgeous!!!!`. Which elicited a number of giggles as I got increasingly louder and more excited. And my friend Kris, ever being the voice of reason replied `He is probably married or engaged.` (pause) `If nothing else he has a girlfriend`. This being the basic rule, if you should find a young attractive Japanese guy, more than likely he is 100% completely not available. It is about 10 minutes later that I find out not only is he gorgeous,and 21, but he can speak English surprisingly well (not to mention I took a good look at his hands and didn`t see a single ring on him) which again resulted in me hyperventilating over the fact that this is probably as close to an eligible bachelor I would ever come close to finding in Yamaguchi prefecture!!!! (Again my female friends laughing at my ridiculousness.)

So just to quickly recap: Young, Gorgeous, Speaks English, lives nearby. Perfect. Or so you would think. Throughout our entire dinner he hardly spoke a single word to me (let alone look at me!), maybe just to ask where I lived in Japan! I was near burst to slap Kris out of jealousy because gorgeous Japanese guy seemed to have no trouble chatting to her. uggggh. To make matters even worse I later over hear gorgeous Japanese guy telling our friend Richard, ` (something something something) yeah, she is studying to become a nurse`. At which point one of our friends who had arrived with afore mentioned gorgeous Japanese guy informed me that I was out of luck seeing as my `love interest` had a girlfriend (followed by a sound `told you so` from Kris). well shit. but maybe not complete shit, as I said before I don`t really care to have a boyfriend but it was nice to know that if I should`ve wanted one there would be a completely gorgeous english speaking potential boyfriend living up the road from me. And besides, just because he has a girlfriend doesn`t mean I cant flirt with him, right.? I figured if nothing else it could serve as some great insight into flirting with guys in Japan.

Well anyway this post is getting a bit long, so I suppose I should begin to cut to the chase. After dinner we ended up splitting off into two groups (my gorgeous Japanese crush leaving with the other group) and at some point in the night I made it clear to our friend Miguel that I was completely enamored (or something like that) with said Japanese guy and I didnt care if he made it known or not, as it turns out he had made it known. When they met up with the rest of us later Miguel made it a point to tell me that my crush thought that I was beautiful. Which sent me into a fit of giggles (or so) and also demands of why he wouldnt sit near me (hint: maybe because he has a girlfriend [duh])!?!?! Turns out Japanese guys are foolishly shy after Miguel had convinced my crush that I would not bite or harm him in any other way he decided to go ahead an sit near me in silence. After some light chat I fell into my usual behavior that occurs when in proximity to an attractive guy which is basically me gushing over how gorgeous he is for a good 5 minutes. At which point he finally decides to fess up and tell me that he thought I was beautiful. Long story short we ended up exchanging numbers (as friends!!!!). And I had been able to enjoy a night of shamelessly flirting with a handsome fellow for the first time in who knows how long. And learning a few key observations about dating in Japan: 1) It is hard to find a young, attractive, english speaking Japanese guy. 2) When you do find him he probably has a girlfriend. 3)He probably is ridiculously shy and the only way to be so abrupt as to make him talk to you is if you let him know that you are interested in him. 4)They are probably a stage 9 clingon.

The next morning
I receive a text that says he cannot stop thinking about me.
Later: I get a text saying that he has nearly fallen in love with me.
Later: He told his girlfriend that he has strong feelings for me.
The next day: He tells me he loves me. and that he wants me to be his girlfriend.
Later that same day he asks if he can drive down to see me that evening.

Any day now I am expecting a proposal of marriage.


What have I gotten myself into?
Dont pray for a boyfriend at a Japanese temple, more than likely you will get it.
I think (see: hope) I am still a 20 something single.
It`s not so bad to be a 20-something single in Japan.
Resolution: Sit back and enjoy my life as a 20-something single

Final Observation: Dating is too complicated.