My Four Online Dating Disasters in Tokyo (Part 1 of 3)
A recently divorced American tries the local dating app scene
The woman’s dating app profile said she was German, 42, had lived in Japan since 2012, enjoyed hot springs and was “looking for serious guys only. No ONS, FWB or BDSM”. Google told me that these acronyms stood for “one night stand”, “friends with benefits” and “bondage, domination, sadism and masochism.”
I suddenly realized that my own profile lacked the weirdo-filtering last phrase of the German lady’s. So it looked like I was up for a bed rope and handcuffs session with any nutjob in Tokyo.
This explained why my dating app inbox was full of messages from people like Jill the American, whose profile read:
“Just a kinky girl looking for fun. Dominant mistress! Looking for someone who will worship me.”
This was how I entered the world of Japan’s dating apps last winter, not long after my 15-year marriage to a Japanese woman had ended. There really was no other choice. Tokyo was still under COVID lockdown during this time, which basically removed the most common ways in Japan to meet new people — group dates ( 合コン gokon) and office relationships.
And as for how divorced middle-aged foreigners like me normally find dates in Tokyo, not only did I not have any good pick-up lines anymore, but this wouldn’t even matter. With bars and izakaya shut down all those lessons from my youth in rejection and detecting red-flags were worthless. The approach phase of dating now would be all virtual.
Things had changed since the last time I’d dated. That was in my early twenties in late 1990s Newport Beach, California, a simpler time and place. Your ability then to date, ONS, or FWB depended not on being clever with smartphones and apps, but on having a good opening line, a BMW and a HWOV (house with ocean view).
I was as broke as a joke back then and mostly failed at dating in glitzy Orange County. This time in Tokyo I’d be tripped up by technology and cultural confusion.
My misadventure began when I registered on the Japanese version of Bumble, the U.S. dating app that requires the woman to make the first move by swiping right on the man’s profile page.
And the German lady who liked hot springs would be my first of four disastrous dates.
Date #1
My game was off from the start. I remember being happy to learn that she lived in Kawasaki, an industrial area between Yokohama and Tokyo and the location of my company’s office. After 14 years here I’d adopted the Japanese obsession with convenience, so much so that I took her living there as a possible sign of fate.
Like many Japanese businessmen I still usually went to the office even during lockdowns, and I think I also liked knowing that I could quickly pop back to the sanctity of my desk if the date went badly.
So I plowed ahead after exchanging only a few messages with her. I proposed we meet in Kawasaki on a weekday.
We met in the evening at her favorite café in the area, which she hadn’t been to for a year. I stumbled right out of the gate. As we sat down I realized I forgot my reading glasses at the office. So I asked her to read the menu to me. As she read it she noticed that like many Tokyo cafes during lockdowns they’d added a selection of beer to fill the void left by bars closing at night.
She ordered a latte and when I decided to go for a local IPA she did a double-take and glared at me:
“What? You got beer? You didn’t see that my profile said that I’m sober?!”
“Um. No. Really? I don’t think it mentioned that. Did you add that part later?”
“Well, you should’ve seen my Bumble profile change. Alcohol on a man’s breath is gross when kissing.”
“Wait, who says we’re gonna kiss?”
The reason I hadn’t seen her profile update was that I didn’t know how to turn on Bumble’s automatic notifications. But I was a little ticked off and didn’t feel like apologizing for my lack of tech-savvy:
“Anyway, it’s 5pm, and sorry, but who figures ‘sober’ would be added to a profile later?”
She crossed her arms at this and we sat there silently for a minute. I tried to break the tension with a chuckle:
“I mean, you’re German and you chose this place with craft beer!”
She scoffed, got up and left the café. And that’s how my first date Bumble crumbled.
— Michael Howard is the author of the memoir, The Salaryman: An American dude becomes a Tokyo white-collar warrior. Buy the book at Amazon. Or visit his website: michaelhowardwriter.com
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