Are online relationships common in Japan?
 

It's nearly impossible to get a japanese girlfriend around here, I'd really have to luck out, so I will look online. Do japanese girls usually go for the long distance/online relationship with guys they chat with? I had a few japanese pen pals about half a year ago and all of them stated up front "no romance" in their profile before you even communicated with them. I respected their profile and never once tried to spark up any romantic talk with any of the women I talked to.

Are most japanese women like this or did I just have some bad luck on the penpal site I was on? I'm looking for a mostly online relationship and to visit japan maybe 1-2 times a year. Is this common?

i dont know if its common, but a friend of my had 2 year relation ship with a japanese girl

Did he meet her online?

yes he did

Do you recall how?

i believe they met on a japannese website, but i dont witch one it was

Alright, thanks.

i'm going to ask him if he remembers witch website it was, but no promises made.

it was eGenki Japan Social Network- Home

For some odd reason, people on penpal sites are usually looking for penpals.

Perhaps you should join an online dating site?

What's the attraction of dating someone who doesn't live in Japan, and you may see only once or twice a year?

Good question. I actually assumed any girl that would agree to date me and only see me once or twice a year would also have a local boyfriend.

But then again, I can't really think of a compelling reason why a woman would date me locally either.

But then they aren't always clear-cut like that. Japanese Friend Finder,for example,some people I think might just be friends[so if so I add boys and girls] but some might be potential girlfriends. A ''lady friend'' sometimes means a girlfriend and sometimes means a female friend. There's a lot of subtext.

If they have a local boyfriend, then what purpose do you serve?

Most of the time people that have long distance relationships started out having a local relationship, but one of them needed to move away.

And I wasn't speaking about you personally, but about people in general. What makes a serious relationship grow into something satisfying is getting to spend time together and know each other.

What purpose do I serve? Maybe they want to learn better english, maybe they like teaching japanese and sharing culture. When I use to penpal a lot I'd always get asked about current TV shows and current music and things like that. And a lot like telling me about their lives. I don't know, it's not for everybody, but some people like it. And of course their local boyfriend can serve their needs I can't obviously serve like taking her out to dinner or sex.

And you're probably right most long distance relationships do start out like that, but it's not unheard of for people to meet online in other countries and eventually get together.

I'm not familiar with that site but Japanese Friend Finder sounds like a place where people find Japanese Friends.

Why not skip the obscurity and sign up with a place like match.com?

Just thought I'd post my experiences with penpal sites in particular.

I signed up with an online site around 10 years ago for the purposes of finding someone I could practice my Japanese with. Although I had many pen friends at first, that number eventually whittled down to two. One of them was a girl from Shizuoka who came to visit me in Toronto. We spent a week together and at the end of her visit, she asked me I could be her boyfriend if she returned with a working holiday visa. I told her No.

The other penpal was a girl from Tokyo who eventually became a stalker who emailed me several times a day. When I stopped responding, she flew to Toronto and called me from the airport asking me to meet her. I told her No.

Two years ago, I signed up with another site to practice my Japanese with. (Seriously... I'm studying for JLPT1.) After many interactions, I eventually settled with 2 individuals.

One of them was a lady in Osaka who I met late last year. To my surprise, she actually proposed to me while we were at Universal Studios. I told her No.

The other is a pharmacist from Tokyo who is arriving next month to stay with me for a week. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, you're right here. If you can't think of one then why would you expect a female to think of one! But have hope dear Brass, I hear there are dominatrix type women out there who like puppy dog type guys to dig their stilettos into. lol Just kidding around here but unless you want one of thooooose type of girls..Have some confidence and if you don't have confidence then work out, learn a language, do SOMETHING that you're passionate about that would make you confident and make a girl find you attractive. Now .. If only I could find a girl...:lets cry together:


Tell her no!!!!

Wow.. hope it goes well. But you can always say NO :):vsign:

You must be extremely attractive (or rich)? I couldn't imagine that happening to 99% of people.

I'd say that I'm average looking.

I should also state that both of my parents are Japanese so I'm assuming these girls felt a sense of security about me before coming.

Oh I didn't know you were japanese, thats probably a huge factor.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your senario doesn't happen to 99% of western men who talk to japanese women online unless they are brad pitt looking or as rich as warren buffet.

i met a Japanese girl on the web, dated her over a year

so i could be a common thing

But that is not a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, that is a language partner or a penpal.

Ok fine, a penpal relationship with some romantic talk.

No wonder you are having trouble.

I don't understand where you're going with this. People have confirmed that some Japanese girls do, in fact, engage in long distance "romantic" relationships and have also discussed possible websites to find them. You want us to go out and reel one in for ya too?

Please don't take this the wrong way but have you ever been in an actual relationship before (I mean one where you could physically touch the person lol)??

It sounds like you haven't because you are saying such ridiculous things such as "you have to look like Brad Pitt or be as rich as Warren Buffet to get a Japanese girl."

Reality Check: Go out and talk to girls in "real life" and get some experience because even if your dopey Snuffaluffagus "if only some girl would like a guy :deep depressive sigh: like me" shtick works you'll end up chasing them away by being clingy or just insecure (which = unattractive).

Tough love baby :man hug:
lol.!!

Guys... I'm 28 years old and have been in a lot of relationships lol. I even posted in this forums about my previous relationship and you guys jumped all over me. I'm not the loser you guys imagine. I just want a japanese girlfriend online.

Well, that DOES make it sound like a loser thing. (I am sorry, I am HONESTLY not calling you one, just saying thats what it sounds like.)

I mean, you can wait more to find a wonderful girl, Japanese, Chinese, American, Kenyan, whatever and be with her more in person first.
Mind you, I did relationship with a guy I met online. (Here in fact). As I got to know him in person and be with him more...he turned out to be indeed quite the frog.

Before joining an online dating site I met no women online, after joining, I met handfuls of them.

Japan cupid is the one I had joined, the gf I have now I met there nearly 3 years ago.

Before meeting her there I met about 20 other Japanese girls from that site who lived in my local area all of which who wanted to be either my friend, my friend with benefits, my (exclusive?) sex-friend, my girlfriend, my wife, and some other weird things.

Some wanted to talk for weeks online before meeting (in a public place) and others just came right to my front door the same evening we made contact.

Look for what you want in the right place and you'll find it!

A bit late to this discussion, but I'll toss in my info.

Japan has plenty of online relationship related culture, and plenty of sites to cater to it. In fact, I would even be willing to go out on a limb and say that Japan had "online" relationships before there even was an "online".
With the tradition of arranged marriages and a culture that hasn't historically catered so much to "love" as a main factor in a relationship - there have always been relationship services of some sort. From what I understand, there were services hundreds if years ago to introduce singles in distant villages to each other and the like. Dating services are a very traditional thing, really. Doing it online is really just a recent update.

You can find people wanting anything from a friend to a husband/wife online. It is still tradition for people to get special photos taken when they are 20 to use in the future for introduction services, on or offline.

The main markets though are people looking for no-commitment sex or to get married. The areas between are not very represented, so if you are looking for one or the other, great, but the pickings may be scarce if you are looking for normal dating.

When it comes to a relationship with someone outside of the country, things change a bit. There tends to be a pretty limited set of people... Mostly women who either can't manage a normal relationship in Japan (the type to run from!) or who want to be able to say they have a foreign boyfriend, but keep that at a distance so they don't really have to deal with any potential problems that might arise from a "real" relationship. And, of course, the freedom to just call it off whenever...

But, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. If you just want to be able to say you have a Japanese girlfriend, I am sure you won't have too much trouble finding a girl who just wants to be able to say that she has a foreign boyfriend.

I'll second that! The ladder may appear as the former some times too, like a venus fly trap :P

I'll add that that's a good reflection of society too, not just the online community.

Are any people here on Mixi? (PM me yours if you are)
It's a Japanese social networking site, kind of like Facebook, it's not a dating site per se. However profiles are available for everyone to see and sift through as they please.

I've had it for like 6 years, when I'm in Japan I get a fair number of messages (~2-3 a week) from people interested in foreigners or foreign countries, a lot who want to meet up, 7/10 it's women, 2/10 gay men, and 1/10 disturbed male youth who think they are black. Some are definitely sketchy, and as Nyororin points out a lot are the types you should run from, but some have also resulted in great friendships and relationships. I'm 24 now though, and a good amount of girls my age in Japan, both online and off, are looking for marriage partners, and after two nasty incidents (1 from a girl I met online, 1 not) in the past year I make it ambiguously clear (is that even possible??) that I'm not into marriage. They will also back off a bit if you tell them you won't be in Japan for the long-term.

What surprised me at first about this is the open-mindedness of a lot of Japanese about meeting people online then in person. A lot of Japanese women do in fact regard it as dangerous, sketchy, desperate etc. but there's also a lot who are very interested in it, and not just the "Japanese men don't like me so I'm into foreigners" type. I daresay that Japanese are more open-minded about it than Americans would be about meeting foreigners in person they met online. Remember this isn't a dating site.

I should point out that speaking Japanese and knowing the cultural dos and donts is a huge part of it though. I almost never get messages in English. I think this closely relates to what spicytuna referring to, about a sense of security. This is regardless of whether it's online or not. A lot of Japanese have very conflicting desires; they want to experience "foreignness" whatever that may be, without leaving their safety bubbles, and while speaking Japanese. The ones you meet who try and speak English, and/or who actually go abroad, are in the extreme minority, but will be the extreme majority of who you meet if you just use English.

Anyways tl;dr Online relationships are very common in my opinion, though it is all relative. You will always be a foreigner BUT you can be both a foreigner AND someone who doesn't make people feel like they have to take large steps or effort to communicate and associate with you, whether through your personality, cultural know-hows, or language prowess (preferably all 3)

Hmmm, I signed up for http://japaneselifestyle.meta4networks.com, uploaded my picture and filled out my profile but I am not getting any emails or winks. Maybe I need to rethink this.

Maybe you need to re think this? How fucking rude. you have the best in the business giving you the best assessment you are going to get and this isn't good enough? Take all you shit and get the fuck out of here. How about that?

Huh? Who am I being rude to? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Who said anything that was said here "wasn't good enough"?

lol.

I'm not going to speak for MMM but I empathize with his feeling.
When you said:
You basically took all of the time people invested in responding to your original question and threw it out the window because "life is too hard" or "it's too long to wait" or whatever reason you have for giving up.
Note: I just spent 10 minutes of my life typing just THIS message, for free, for someone I don't know. Just like every other person who responded to your original question that you seemed so sincere in asking.

Maybe you don't mean it this way but that's how it's coming across (to me at least.)
If this is how you roll (i.e. taking people's suggestions [even from people who LIVE in Japan] and just saying "ahh, it's too hard never-mind) then:

The next time I see a question from you posted on this forum - You can figure it out on your own.

(I'm just being a little facetious in this post but I hope you get the drift...)

If thats how it came out, my bad, thats not what I meant. to MMM and everybody else who responded I'm not ignoring all your advice and throwing it out the window after 10 minutes of effort. "Maybe I need to rethink this" was a little hastey and not really what I meant as far as the entirety of my effort. It was more along the lines of "maybe I need to rethink my approach at this", as in I will probably need to put a lot more effort into this than just putting my profile on a website and hoping to meet friends.

Hey Brass,

Great statement and no need to necessarily apologize but it's good you are heartfelt about this.

Friends ya say? Well, just be yourself you'll meet a lot of great friends/pen pals. Thought you wanted something more ... a pen pal with a little romance involved.

If you want something more (which you have stated) you're going to have to start out with this mindset from the get go. Remember that girls tend to compartmentalize guys once they meet them. If they meet you and think you're a nice person to chat with then you'll be that "nice person to chat with" guy while some other guy is in the "this is the guy I have sex with" category. Once you're in a category it's hard to just up and move to another. Obviously, you're not going to be in that 2nd category because of distance. [These are simplified/extreme categories for example but there are many more such as: "guy who buys me things" category which guys behave themselves into and then have the audacity to call a girl a "gold digger" when they applied for that job. If people buy ME things...i'm taking them too.]

Also, girls aren't very visual like us guys so finding a girl who is going to want video/pics/or the dreaded "cyber chat" with romantic / sexual contexts might be difficult too (especially if you don't plan on moving there/her here to marry.)

This whole situation (i.e.: romantic "friend" from a distance) is difficult.