What Japanese Men Are Like, Part 1

I know it’s reductionist to say “Japanese men are such and such” and I know there are as many kinds of Japanese men as there are American, British, or any other kind of man. That said, after almost five years here, there are some broad generalizations I feel just fine about making.

Men and Language

Men and women often use different verb conjugations and sometimes different words altogether. When I first heard Japanese guy-speak, in the mid ‘90s, I thought it had a charming swagger. I liked to copy it, much to my guy friends' horror. Now when I hear my female students using the male word for 'me' I find it mildly shocking (old age I suppose). Osakans, and Osakan men in particular, have a rough dialect that makes it sound like they're swearing when they speak casually. The endearment 'kimi,' which is something like a combination of 'little inferior person' and 'dear' can only be used by men, as far as I know.

TV Tropes

I watch a lot of Japanese TV: game shows, historical dramas, news, and if I'm really desperate, anime. One thing I've seen repeatedly is the clumsy come-on. I don't mean Hugh-Grant-stuttering clumsy, I mean a man grabbing his boss in an elevator and smashing his mouth against hers (where he holds it without moving for several seconds), or a man suddenly lunging at his old high school sweetheart, or a samurai putting a sort of choke hold on the neck of the woman he loves. It's so awkward and inappropriate and against basic human intuition that it seems almost robotic.

What I never see is the moment of chemistry between two people that would normally cause a kiss or embrace: the lingering eye contact, the lean-in, the faster breaths--normal human passion. I would like to think this chemistry isn't lacking in real Japanese relationships (though it would help explain the declining birthrate). This type of TV encounter is so common it must be coming from some part of the culture. I'm going to have to investigate this.

Until this, my third time living in Japan, I'd never considered Japanese men to be awkward with women. Shin, who I dated from 2000-20002, was the soul of ease and romantic to boot. I had such a good experience with him that during a bout of spring fever this year I decided to try the international site for Match.com.

Dating

Initially, things looked pretty encouraging. There was a guy who'd done aid work in Africa, one who taught English at a university in Nara, one who worked as a study-abroad coordinator and had lived in L.A. for seven years, and one who had spent 15 years in Europe.

My first date was with the study-abroad coordinator, Akira. It was in March, and I'd just gotten some costume items and make up for the Lady Gaga concert in April, so I thought I'd try the false eyelashes on my first date with Akira. Let me explain here that these were not your everyday lashes. They were more like black feathery awnings for my eyeballs. I think from 20 feet away they probably looked amazing, but up close I'm pretty sure I looked like a clown. The Starbucks where we met was mercifully dim and we got through a cup of coffee and decided to go for dinner. He was tall and very well dressed, attractive, and extremely at ease in English. I was underdressed in jeans, and every time I blinked my eyelid pulled where I'd glued it to itself, and the lashes flapped a little. He took me to a Balinese restaurant that started with an ornately carved teak door and opened up into room after room of romantic little nooks, with fountains and sheer gauze curtains between tables. I'd had very low expectations for the date, but I enjoyed talking to him in spite of my two giant handicaps and thought I'd like to see him again. A few days later he emailed saying we should get together for coffee sometime but it seemed like he was just being polite.

The former aid worker stopped emailing me shortly after he found out my research area was Women's Studies. I think it makes a lot of men defensive.

The university teacher was ok but he didn't seem culturally comfortable and I can't date someone who is as skittish about being with a foreigner as every other person I come into contact with. It's just too exhausting.

The guy I had the highest hopes for was Toshi, the one who'd lived in Europe for ages.