Un-AmericanDreamer
Simp City
You wrote this with insulting comments towards American men, sprinkled with conceited comments towards Japanese men and women.
It’s very disparaging.
And now you wonder why people respond in kind?
You set the tone with your own judgmental attitude.
You can try to take the words back or claim you’re just misunderstood, but it’s not a very convincing act.
Allow me to underscore some of the issues here.
1. You thought 9 months was a long time. You never even got past the first stage of living abroad before you gave up.
2. Women in Japan make the first move. It’s not America, you have to play by their rules. That means you have to swap roles with the American guy and take the initiative.
Giving “come hither” looks don’t count. In fact, it’s a laughable attempt. That’s what you do to encourage an American guy to take the initiative.
You have to do what you’d expect American men to do. Start with buying a gift, it need not be expensive. Valentines is to your favor in Japan.
3. All Japanese know foreigners, especially the women, are only there for a short time. As a result, it’s very rare the other party will seek a long-term relationship unless you go the extra mile.
Your method of approaching men somewhat randomly with “come hither” looks only encourages the view that you’re looking for a fling. If a fling was acceptable and you failed, well… you’re doing it wrong. Try again. Choose a target, and keep trying. You’ll succeed eventually. Undoubtedly much faster than an American man trying to pick up girls… we have to try to many more times. Get used to it if flings are your thing in Japan. In fact, I’d say get used to putting yourself on the line and learn to deal with rejection if you’re a woman in Japan.
4. Does hitting on random guys work for long-term relationships in America? I know when girls randomly hit on me in America, I’m not thinking long-term… just the possibilities of the next 12 hours.
Long-term relationships the world over are began through connections. Be it a common social group, work, or mutual friends. The latter is the rule in Japan. So much in Japan is done by word of mouth and mutual trust. The worst thing that can happen to anyone in Japan is to be ostracized.
Generally speaking, you need to meet people in serious settings to find people interested in serious relationships. This goes for any country.
5. For the previous to work, you need to make friends with local females. They will be your best resource to local males. You have to leave the comfort zone of the gaijin bubble. Your coworkers should be your first target for friend-making. Give them presents and show them respect, chances are you will be accepted.
The key to making friends with Japanese is showing honest consideration — not in words, in fact almost never in words. It must be done in small acts of kindness, with a smile. This is actually much easier for women in general. For a guy to gain acceptance is a little harder. We can’t just show up and be cute and hand out presents. It’s not appropriate behavior for a male (in any culture.) So use this liberally, make local friends. Leave the bubble.
If you can’t leave the bubble, you’re not interested in a serious relationship to begin with.
6. Your condescension towards Japanese men and women is very obvious. Japanese are very sensitive to condescension as it’s their primary means of insulting eachother (Americans tend towards sarcasm and facetiousness.)
Even if you say you’re not condescending, a lot of people here have picked up on it.
Other people clearly think you’re condescending… and if we think that due to a short blog you wrote on the internet, I guarantee you people will get that perception in real life.
It doesn’t matter if you’re not condescending — if they get that perception, you’re done. Work on it.
7. Carrying on with the perception issues, another is that Western Women are high maintenance. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, that is the world-wide perception going in. You need to beat that perception.
Ultimately my theory on why JPN female – Ame male works and is so prevalent is very simple:
- American men are expected to spoil women. To take all the responsibility and hand over all the spoils.
- Japanese women are expected to indulge men.
It works because *generally speaking* each party goes in expecting to give more than they get, and are thus pleased when they both receive more than they could otherwise expect.
On the flipside, the 2 cultures teach that Japanese men expect to be indulged and American women expect to be spoiled. American women may not realize this, but Japanese men are aware of it. This goes back to #7.
One of you has to give. In Japan, you have to play by their rules. So if you’re trying to figure it out — ask yourself “What would I expect a guy back home to do for me if I was in the local guy’s shoes?” If you want some perspective on how you appear… imagine you’re in America, and a Japanese guy with broken English and a weird accent hits on you in the same manner. Can you see why asking random guys for recommendations and giving come hither looks didn’t get you anywhere? That would get you ignored in America too, maybe even perceived as creepy or inappropriately forward and unwanted attention.
Our culture teaches us American guys that we’re expected to hold the door for you, treat you like daddy’s little princess, treat you like “equals” when decisions are made, listen to you for as long as you like, and take all the responsibility when it’s time to pay the bills or go the extra yard.
I don’t say this to be demeaning or rude, just so you can maybe get some perspective of what’s expected of you in Japan. You’re expected to go the extra yard in Japan.
You can call the situation in Japan sexist, but then you would be admitting the situation in America is reverse sexism by extension. I suggest you don’t dwell on the politics and do whatever is necessary. If you find a guy worth going the extra mile for, it’s not a problem right?
For a guy to seriously date Japanese women, we have to also get accustomed to different expectations. The difference is that, the expectations in our home country largely exceed those in Japan.
Secondly, we don’t deal with all of the perspective issues that American women have. Again, it doesn’t matter in either case if the perspective is true — what matters is that you understand the perspective exists and can cope with it in one form or another.
That might mean you prove the perception wrong. That might mean you win your partner over so they don’t mind if it’s true. You will want to take steps to mitigate those perceptions in the early stages, however. You may also express to your local friends your concerns. If they are considerate, you won’t need to ask them to put in a good word for you on those accounts.
Japanese, regardless of sex, are likely to treat Americans, regardless of sex, as play toys. Many of the American women seem to be very upset about this fact, as a lot of the expat guys don’t have a problem with such an arrangement. Thus you guys appear to get very jealous.
But I believe it’s fairly difficult for there to be a meaningful relationship across cultures. American men also have a lot of negative perceptions to work through and a longer and more difficult road in establishing local friends. The reality is that not a whole lot of Japanese want to move abroad permanently.
Finally, I’ll leave all the women with 1 thought here.
This thread has a lot of complaints from women abroad that they either get no attention in country X or too much attention in country Y.
You bounce between stereotyping men as “shy”, “intimidated” and then if they do pay attention you paint them as sex maniac perverts. It seems like no matter what, you take issue with how men treat you outside of America.
With this kind of attitude and stereotyping, how do you expect anyone from the opposite sex to take you seriously? To make a cross-cultural relationship work, it takes a lot of work and flexibility by both parties. The rewards are high, but it requires commitment and trust.
So long as these kinds of stereotypes are your perceptions of men abroad, you will never be able to establish the trust for such a relationship. The women who didn’t harbor these stereotypes are probably finding men in these countries and happy.
Read more at http://www.vagabondish.com/female-foreign-japan/#G9Q3MdAOMsfdyMWJ.99
BEAST MODE
You guys remember me discussing in here recently how I think as a masterpeice as this thread is that we have been focusing TOO MUCH on the relationship aspect when it comes to women? I still believe so. We have to remember the thread is about "gems of dealing with women" but the gems don't necessarily have to always be from a relationship aspect or mindset. It can be like what i brought up before about other moments in life like in our jobs. And this could be the perfect thing to get going because it would be interesting if all of us discuss for the next couple of pages how women interact with you as CUSTOMERS...
look and after i get annoyed i tell her in a calm voice "Miss I can't bag the rest of your stuff if you still have bags up here(she still had not picked up anything i bagged in the cart)
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and said "miss can you show me your pathmark card" and she did it..
breh.
Wow she posts here?
