What it’s like dating girls in Japan
…more like “courting” than “dating”?
Was Pride and Prejudice part of your high school curriculum? It was part of mine, and I hated that book. First of all I didn’t really understand it, why were these girls so desperate to get married? And the language was so formal and the sentences really long. As a 16 year old I had more interesting priorities than learning about 19th century courting. The thing is, dating scene in Japan reminds me so much of the so little I remember about that book.
In this day and age, the reason why we date people in the Western world is usually because we’re interested in that person for who they are. It’s an opportunity to get to know your date better, to see if they really share the same values as you, to observe how they conduct themselves in public situations. Along the way, you are on the lookout for any surprises while also sharing little by little something new about yourself as the two of you take the time to deepen the connection that brought you together in the first place. That’s modern Western dating.
Then there’s Japanese dating. The end goal is still the same — you want to end up in some sort of relationship with the person. But the way they go about it is completely different. While in Western dating, we try to leave as great of an impression as possible of who we are, in Japan it’s about being able to portray the ideal guy or perfect girl. This generally comes down to how you dress, what you do for a living, and to what extent you play the Japanese gender roles. The roles for guys are quite straight forward and you can see people all around the world doing these things anyways. They are expected to present their social standing (like what job they have), pay the bill, lead the conversation, and of course be nice. But in this article I’d like to focus on the girls, and particularly the ordinary Japanese girls: the ones that grew up with traditional Japanese values, who have no or very little foreign friends, and are focused primarily on dating others with similar backgrounds.
So what exactly is the perfect girl?
Gender roles are strongly engrained in Japanese culture and society, so many of the attributes of “the perfect girl” are things which may remind you of your grandmother or great-grandmother’s generation. For example, a girl who is very passive, willing to agree with whatever you say, doesn’t interrupt you mid-sentence, attentive, smiles, looks happy, has good table manners…maybe you get the point now…would fit the definition. Perhaps now you can see why I mentioned Pride and Prejudice. It’s old fashioned for us, but it’s quite the reality of dating in Japan. It’s not that people are doing this because they have to either, but many girls actually accept these roles and enjoy taking them on as well. Again, they’ve grown up with traditional Japanese values.
One fresh example I have took place just a couple weeks ago. We met at a cafe and from meeting outside of the table to sitting down at our table there’s nothing noticeably different from Western dating, except the slight bow in place of waving a hand at first sight. Once we sat down everything I stated above started taking place. She sat with almost unnatural perfect posture, was very attentive, only said positive things, I couldn’t get an opinion out of her that would in the least seem disagreeing with mine. What was particularly interesting about this girl though was that when we went to pay the bill and walk to the nearest station, she walked behind me the whole time. Not next to me. And I’m not a fast paced walker. As you can imagine it was quite awkward to continue the conversation with someone who was trying to be your shadow, but this is the extent that Japanese girls will go to leave as “positive” an impression as possible.
So then, how do you get to really know a Japanese girl?
Basically, you need to go on a lot of dates. Only over time, maybe a few weeks at the earliest but usually over a few months, will you start to see the disguise from courting start to wear off to reveal the girl’s true personality. So just be patient, and try to enjoy the relationship for what it is in the meantime. You will start to notice inconsistencies with what she said about herself the first several dates and how she acts as she gets more comfortable with you.
One of the most “classic” examples in Japan that I had the opportunity to experience myself occurred last year when I was dating a particular girl. She seemed to have a pretty outgoing personality and a nice sense of humor. She also didn’t go by the script and so I liked her for who she was. One of the things she told me on the second date was that she was enjoyed cooking and always cooked for her exs’, and that she was so 家庭的(katei-teki, which translated to “domestic” or “housewife-ish” that they wanted to marry her). Yes that’s a thing in Japan, it’s a bit of girls want to sound like they are good marrying material and many guys make it a condition before getting serious in a relationship. Now me being brought up in the States, I don’t really care about how domestic or not a girl is, so I tried to brush aside this awkward appeal and pretend it never happened.
Several months later into the relationship she had visited my house several times, but not once did she venture into the kitchen. Again, the fact that she wasn’t katei-teki at all doesn’t matter to me, but the fact that girls here go to such lengths to present the stereotypical perfect girl was an eyeopening experience. Eventually you will get to see the girl’s true personality, and that’s when you can finally decide whether you really like her or not.
Dating Japanese girls has taught me an important life lesson — to be patient with people and to make no judgments early on. When it comes to Japanese girls, you really don’t know what you’re in for, and there will be surprises down the road that can make or break the relationship. After being in a culture with so much social stigma where people try to hide even their most simple likes and dislikes, it’s made me understand how pervasive social pressure can be and that when people do reveal something unique about themselves to you, your values aside, that it’s important to be appreciative of the fact they opened up.
Everyone has something to hide, so when someone does decide to open up to you, try to show them your appreciation of the gesture as much as possible. Of course, what you do from there is up to you.
