Dating Japan - Meet and Date Japanese Girls

Otis' fall from yellow fever grace pt. 2

Three things happened to Otis that stopped his downward spiral of sexual indulgence with Japanese girls: two moments of clarity and then an epiphany in full-blown technicolor.

First moment of clarity

Otis was off to meet one of his longer-term 'girlfriends' at a cafe. It was his birthday, and they were planning to celebrate. As he was on the train to the cafe, his phone rang: it was a new 'contact' that he met through the classifieds. They had emailed a few times, and all of a sudden, she was keen to meet.

Two hours later, Otis and his new friend were lounging in bed when his phone rang. It was the 'girlfriend', very upset, calling from the cafe. "I told her to go f*ck herself and then I hung up the phone."

When he did, the first moment of clarity struck – he saw himself as he was for perhaps the first time in Tokyo.

Second moment of clarity

A few weeks later, Otis was in yet another love hotel with yet another new find. "She was a successful businesswoman, very hot, very lonely." They met one day, flirted a bit, and ended up in bed. Clarity: "I was on top of her, thrusting, I looked down... she was dead."

Not literally dead, of course. The sense of death came from the lack of genuine emotion: two hungry people trying to fill each other up with emptiness. Otis finished up with dignity, but he knew something was wrong.

Epiphany

Otis' general pattern was to lie to cover his tracks juggling numerous girls at the same time. Whenever he got caught, he'd turn the blame on the woman, and guilt them into accepting him as is. 

One day, he was on the platform at Tokyo Station when a jilted ex-lover spotted him. The train pulled up and Otis legged it. The woman made it to the doors just as they closed. "She ran alongside the train as it pulled out, banging on the door and screaming to get at me."

As the train pulled away and the girl disappeared from view, Otis turned to see the entire train watching him, with a sense of disgust. They were looking at a lech, a dirty skeezer who had abandoned his morals in favor of animal lust.

By the time the train had pulled into the next station, Otis had reached a level of self-awareness that would ultimately break his 'kid in a candy store' spell for good.

Mission statement: what's this blog's purpose?

This blog is about dating in Japan. That means western guys dating Japanese girls (there are millions of stories that we can tell) and western girls dating Japanese guys (less stories, but still enough juicy ones).

Thus far we've concentrated on the lower end of the equation (ie. sleazy expats bedding naive Japanese girls), but there is a lot more to dating in Japan than that. Over the next few weeks, ready yourself, then, for some insights from a western woman's perspective, and also some non-trashy stuff about how Japanese culture (ie tatemae and honne) ties into the whole foreign lover and Japanese partner thing.

Otis' fall from yellow fever grace pt. 1

Let's start off today with a glimpse of Anna Ohura, a Japanese AV idol renowned far and wide for her very large, uh, boobies.

Check out this clip of her on Japanese TV:

What does this have to do with Otis? Well, when Otis arrived in Japan, he learned that placing ads in free print classifieds would generally yield a bounty of responses from Japanese vixens eager to hook up with foreign flesh.

So over the course of a year or so, Otis was like a kid in a candy store, dating (and often bedding) several different Japanese women every week.

What happens when a kid indulges too much in a candy store? Obviously, he'll end up getting sick.

Otis got sick. With such an abundance of tail swooning over him, he began to devalue women. Said Otis (to this writer over drinks): "I placed an ad one time that said something like 'Horny white male looking for Japanese girls with really big breasts.'"

That ad yielded four responses, of which Otis bedded one.

Hence our intro featuring Anna Ohura. Geddit?

Yellow fever gone sour in Tokyo

Once upon a time, the communicative power of high-speed Internet was the stuff of fantasy. In Japan in the year 2000, as an example, expats socially networked using classified ads in free English print magazines.

In Osaka there was the (now defunct) Kansai Flea market (a shoddy photocopied rag that came out weekly), and then Kansai Scene. Between 2000-2001, I ran Kansai Scene as Chief Editor. Although we ran features and listings and all kinds of neat stuff, the biggest attraction we had was our free classifieds.

We had a website where people could submit ads, and we also accepted emails and faxes. Every month brought roughly 200 new personals ads that were pretty spicy and lots of fun to read. There were gay boys looking for sugar daddies, fat Japanese girls seeking black men,  housewives looking for action while their husbands were at work, and all kinds of sleazy expat ads with cheap sex hooks (ie "Professional masseuse from Canada available to pleasure ladies in their homes").

Otis' sex addiction

Once, I met a Canadian fellow named 'Otis' (not his real name). Otis was a plump dude in his early 30s with a buzz cut and thick-lensed glasses. He had lived in Tokyo for a few years, during his 'wilder' days, but 'cleaned himself up' and was now living a responsible life as a married man (married to a Japanese girl). He worked as a businessman in Osaka.

In his 'wildman' days, Otis discovered that free classifieds were a very powerful and easy way to meet up with Japanese girls seeking foreigners. Otis used Metropolis classifieds (the best Tokyo city classifieds bar none, for more than 15 years now).

"I couldn't believe how easy it was. I would post ads asking to meet Japanese girls, and I'd get a huge response every time.

Downward spiral

Otis landed in Japan in 1998, got settled, and learned how to score girls using classifieds. Every week brought new dates. New numbers. New shags. A blur.

Over the course of two years, Otis enjoyed a rampage of raw lust, pure greed, and the acting out of all kinds of kinky desires. He eventually hit bottom, and was forced to leave Japan. Later, he returned and settled in Osaka into a tame domestic life.

The story of his descent is a good one. I'll share that with you in my next post. In the meantime, here's a pic taken in the Cellar Bar in America-Mura, from 2005. This little hottie is a good example of the type you'll meet in Japan expat bars, and the type our man Otis was shagging on a regular basis – despite his pear-shaped body and nerdy glasses. 

Have hope, gentlemen: although free print classifieds are on the wane, a whole new crop of online dating sites have picked up the slack. If you want to be like Otis (wink), it's still pretty easy, in 2009...

 

 

Expat teachers dating boozy students

Once upon a time, before gloomy economic times, (and waaay before Nova’s collapse), expat life in Japan was a very happy-go-lucky affair, with enough money floating around to finance all sorts of crazy schemes.

Today, the largest percentage of expats (outside the corporate sphere) work as English teachers. Now, to be blunt, teaching English really sucks, but on the bright side, working at the big chain schools (an easy route for newbies) generally means teaching a mixture of kids and adults.

What better way to meet attractive Japanese women? If she’s there on a Friday night gazing at you teaching grammar, well, that’s a good thing, right?

Drunken maidens

One thing that sets Japanese women apart from other Asians is that most of them enjoy a good drink. Another is that very few of them seem to have curfews. Thus, the old ‘let’s go for a drink’ line can be very useful.

That said, back in my own teaching days, I only suffered awkward moments by asking students out directly – it’s simply poor, uncouth form. The trick is to arrange a wingman, and then ask her to do the same. (This has everything to do with honne & tatemae, which I'll tackle in a future post).

If it sounds easy, it is. But there are downsides. Being surrounded by slim, demure, silky haired women in designer clothing that enjoy stiff drinks can lead to trouble – ‘Kid-in-a-candy-store’ type trouble.

Kid in a candy store? Check out this video for a good example of what I mean:

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you a story about a shy Canadian teacher who enjoyed too much sweet candy – to the point that it all went sour.

Japanese girls, dating, and yellow fever

When I first moved to Japan, it took me about six months to score a date with a Japanese girl.

That first date was with ‘Michiko’ (not her real name, of course). Now, that’s not Michiko in the picture (credit for that goes to Danny Choo).  However, the pic is appropriate, because it really does convey the essence of what got me hooked on ‘yellow fever’.

Look at the pic, and read the story. You’ll geddit, I reckon…

First date

Michiko was a ‘good girl’. Like most twenty-something Japanese women, she lived at home with her folks. She worked as an ‘office lady’, a subservient position that offered lots of stress but little real joy.

She took me for dinner at an izakaya. She ordered two mugs of Asahi right off the bat, getting things started in totally positive fashion. After dinner, I took a chance and asked her to pop over to my place for some tea.

Surprisingly, she accepted. She sat straight in her chair, spoke English with a deliciously awkward lilt, and sipped very delicately from the cup. When the tea was done, she scooped up her purse, bowed demurely, and then padded across the tatami to the door.

We met up a few more times and started to get comfortable with each other. One lazy Sunday, we were hanging out in my living room. I was watching basketball. Michiko tugged at my sleeve, half pouting. “Play with me.” Engrossed in the game, I shrugged her off.

Pleasing the man

Eventually, she got up and walked into my kitchen. Turned on the faucet. Started clinking dishes. Dumbstruck, I poked my head in: yes indeed, she was doing my dishes! Shaking my head, I went back into the living room, stunned that a graceful young Japanese woman with a tight little body and long silky auburn hair was in my kitchen… washing cutlery.

After a few minutes, the game was over. My kitchen was spotless. Michiko walked to the couch. I braced for a guilt trip. Instead, she snuggled in deep and gave me a soft poke in the chest. “Play with me.”

At that point, the yellow fever took hold, and my baseball-apple-pie-Barbie-doll ideals were shattered forever.