Relationships

Well since she broke it off I'm going to guess she doesn't read this anymore.  She told me she used to, back in October, but it's unlikely she does now.

My Japanese friend (who is a girl) once told me that when Japanese girls are mad, they stay silent and don't tend to say anything.  I feel like this might be the same with problems in their relationships.  I've dated two Japanese girls now, and both of them broke it off with me, and both times, it went like this:

Sweet text message
Sweet text message
Sweet text message
...See ya!

Granted there were a few other signs here and there I probably should have picked up on, but for the most part I didn't feel like anything was majorly wrong.  At least, wrong enough to just break it off entirely.  Both times too, we had plans to meet up over long distances, and both times, I was led to believe those meetings would happen up until the break-up text.  Now that I think about it, it is pretty vexing.  You don't just wake up one day and say "hey, there's a bunch of problems I didn't notice until just today.  We should talk about them are going break up."  They fester over a period of time until you get to a boiling point and stuff starts overflowing.  Then, even if you turn off the heat, so much has overflown and it's not like you can get it back.

Western relationships seem to work on the basis of telling each other what you want/need (women a little less than men here).  The good side of this is that there is no guesswork.  You know what is working and what isn't, what to keep doing and what to work on.  The bad side of this is that people often aren't good at making these statements of their wants/needs without making it sound like an attack on their partner (or, their partner isn't good at taking these statements not as attacks), which can lead to feelings of resentment and fights.

Japanese relationships seem to work on the basis of guessing what the other wants and trying to make the other person happy.  The good side of this is that there is a fairly clear attempt to make the relationship work.  The bad side is that there is a lot of guesswork, and if something isn't working, neither side will address it.  Talking about feelings isn't big in Japanese society, even to your significant other.  Hell, they don't even really say "I love you" to each other (in contrast, I believe Westerners say this too much).

Both times I felt like I tried to hard to make the relationships work (NOT to be read: I was perfect, I did everything right).  But both times I got the text of death at the point where the girls had given up completely.  There was no hint of "maybe we can make this work if we change things."  There was no hint of "I need something different, can you give that to me or no?"  There was no hint of "I still like you, but I feel those feelings slipping, we should talk about it."  I wanted to try and fix things, and I feel like, if they had talked to me earlier about things, that we could have, in both relationships.  It is impossible to stop the car if the wall gives no indication of its presence until the final second.

I wonder how happy Japanese people really are in their relationships.  I feel communication in relationships isn't valued as much here as it is in Western cultures, and yet communication is one of the key ingredients to a long lasting, happy relationship according to many couples.  Key word there being 'happy.'  Divorce is looked down upon so many Japanese stay married even if they live away from their spouse, although this does seem to be changing.  Westerners on the other hand can be divorce happy, and that, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be changing positively.

If it sounds like I'm simply attacking Japanese girls/society here, I'm really not.  Like I already mentioned, there were things I probably could have done better too.  I could probably write a book on why I'm not exactly Prince Charming.  But both of these relationships failed in large part because the girl didn't bring up major problems before hand.  I didn't feel there was anything terribly wrong, and I definitely didn't think she was thinking of breaking up with me.  I don't know.  Maybe this was all by design.  Maybe I was just being used?  I doubt that because I'm not good looking or extremely outgoing.  Culture for sure plays a large role here, but I really feel with just a little more communication that things could have gone so much better.  Maybe next relationship I should make a monthly appointment to ask the girl if anything is wrong.  I need to get her to tell me the ship is sinking before it actually sinks.  We can't save it if it's already submerged.

The saddest thing is that I like to kind of keep in touch with my old flames.  I like to see what they're up to and see if they're happy.  I want to be friends with them.  It's not like I want to keep them around for the possibility of getting back together or anything like that, I'm just genuinely interested in their lives.  It's sad to share such intimate moments only to just never talk again, I think.  But none of them share those same feelings.  They just never want to talk again.

To be honest there isn't really a point to this post, even though it's probably the longest one on here.  It just feels nice to get some things off my chest.  Maybe I can read this later and smile about it.  I think the most important thing for me now is to try and take as many lessons out of this as I can (although I just turned 30, I'm still VERY new to the whole dating/girlfriend thing)  If any of those girls ARE reading this, I'm not saying it was your fault, but rather both of ours.  I'm not blaming you either.  I'm not mad.  I'm just sad, and likely will be about it for some time.

フラれる (furareru) to be dumped