Dating Site For Foreigners Living In Japan

Dating Site For Foreigners Living In Japan Rating: 3,3/5 4738 reviews

Apr 24, 2021 Saori Iwane, a 32-year-old Japanese woman living in Hong Kong, said she started using Pairs because she was looking to get married and preferred a Japanese man. TOKYO—Dating-app companies have. So, I reached out by email to 40 different women of various ethnicities ranging in age from 23-34, that were raised in the U.S., Canada, Australia, or Europe and had lived or live in Japan, to find out what their dating experiences were/are like in Japan. Japanese dating apps and on-line dating sites are great instruments in case you’re a foreigner in search of a fairly Asian girl or man. Hinge is a relationship app with some Japanese members. Tinder does not provide many filtering options for matches.

Finding love in the modern age is a tricky business for us ladies; there’s attractive profiles to create, emoticons to choose and the general deciphering of Tinder captions – ‘I feel how pizza tastes’… anyone? Throw in some culture shock, the language barrier and a completely different set of rules and you have something like dating in Japan.

In the name of research, GaijinPot got together three different women (UK, USA and Italy) to share their experiences of dating in Japan. The results were pretty interesting…

What were your ideas about Japanese men when you came here?

Chiara: I thought that they didn’t find me attractive so I wasn’t really interested in Japanese guys, even though I was attracted to them.

Rebecca: I wasn’t so attracted to Japanese men but now after living here for three years I would say I definitely am. So now when I go home I immediately look for the nearest Asian guy like ‘Hey! Hello!’…

Christa: I’ve always been attracted to Japanese men, even when I was young, so I did some research before I came here and I saw that generally they are interested but they’re very shy about approaching women so you may need to approach them.

Have you ever been asked on a date by a Japanese guy?

Christa: I was with a girlfriend in Shibuya and two men approached us on the street and we went out for drinks.

Anthony: Were they drunk?

*Laughter*

Rebecca: Exactly, each time that’s happened to me the guy has been pretty hammered. I had heard that Japanese guys tend to be intimidated by foreign women. When I first came, I felt no guys found me attractive since they never looked my way.

Chiara: I heard too that Japanese men weren’t so interested in foreign women but my experience is kind of the opposite. But you don’t know if they’re interested in you as a person or because of your foreignness.

Do girls have to be more aggressive in approaching guys here than back home?

Christa: I actually approached someone on the train recently and he was totally ok with it but yeah it was kind of up to me to make a move.

Dating site for foreigners living in japan 2020

Chiara: Um, let’s say in another field I had to make the first step. I invited this guy to my house and I think it was pretty clear what I wanted to happen, and at a certain point I started to kiss him and he said ‘No. Da-me!’

Anthony: He’s like ‘えええ。。。you didn’t want to study Japanese…?’

Rebecca: A similar thing happened with my friend. She was on a date with a guy and it was going well so at some point she went to kiss him, and he just didn’t move his mouth. She even did it again just to double check and, nope…still nothing. But after they said goodbye and he messaged her saying he wanted to see her again so there’s obviously some kind of cultural dislocate there.

Anthony:I’ve heard so many stories like that where people go on dates and it’s a weird, awkward situation but then later they message you as if it was the best date ever.

Chiara: Or if they don’t want to talk to you then there’s just silence. Silence means no.

Christa: Hmm that’s so frustrating here. I feel that Japanese men scare quite easily and as a foreigner you won’t know exactly what it was that freaked them out. I’ve noticed that if I show a little too much enthusiasm or come across as too independent, that will trigger silence. Like if I initiate wanting to meet that puts some guys off here.

So when guys are shy and girls aren’t supposed to make the first move how do people meet in Japan?

Rebecca: Yeah I don’t know any of my Japanese girlfriends who would directly approach a guy.

Christa: It seems to be through organized group events like ‘gokon’.

Chiara: I know some married couples and the first meeting is usually through friends or at university. Even my boyfriend who is pretty confident had to wait for a friend of mine to set-up a dinner where we could meet before he could work up the courage to ask me out.

Anthony: Is that different to Italian men?

Living in japan

Chiara: Ah haha yeah, that’s not a stereotype.

Rebecca: I think quite a common thing among foreign girls who are in relationships with Japanese guys is that generally the guy has lived abroad or has some sort of not-typical Japanese perspective that makes him attracted to foreign girls.

Is it hard to find something in common or to talk about when you first date a Japanese guy?

Christa: Yeah I went on this one date and the guy spent most of the time on his phone and it was really awkward.

Rebecca: I think because of the language and cultural barrier often conversations can be quite superficial – this or that recommendation of what to do in Japan, or do you like this Japanese food etc. So it’s hard to get into a more deep conversation and to get to know each other.

Christa: I feel like I have the same conversation over and over again because my language skills aren’t good enough.

Are a lot of people dating in Japan? Who’s dating and why?

Anthony: Is there really a casual dating culture here? It seems that Japanese couples move quickly into relationships, and very early on they’ll talk about marriage and kids.

Christa: I think that dating isn’t so common among men and women in their late twenties and early thirties. Back home I’m at prime dating age but I wonder about the guys I date here and why they’re not married yet.

Rebecca: Yeah, it seems like back home dating is really much more frequent. I mean I think that people will go on lots and lots of dates, going in and out of relationships over their twenties and kind of assessing what they want before they settle down.

Chiara: Hmmm there’s a lot of pressure for both sides to get married and establish at least the appearance of a stable family unit as soon as possible. My friend, an American guy, has experienced a lot of first dates where the women already bring up kids and marriage and he’s like ‘woah, what about your favorite music first?’

What about dating foreign guys in Japan?

Dating Site For Foreigners Living In Japan 2020

Rebecca: My experience dating foreign guys here has been comparable to back home – so pretty awful actually – but the general picture of foreign guys in Japan is that they really want to date Japanese girls. Not to say that’s true for every foreign guy here but you do see a lot more couples made up of Japanese girls and non-Japanese guys around.

Chiara: With foreign guys it’s easier to figure them out I think. With Japanese guys you don’t know how much of their behavior is cultural or is actually their personality. And at the same time it’s hard to know, like we were saying earlier, if the guy is interested in you mostly because you’re foreign and the kind of status that that brings with it.

Rebecca: Actually I think that must be difficult for foreign guys especially. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I have heard that there are some Japanese girls who look to specifically date foreign guys because they’re seen as cool or ‘ikemen’.

Are relationships more conservative here?

Christa: Hmm the dynamic between men and women I think is more traditional then back home. On the way here I saw a couple on a train and the guy was just on his phone, he didn’t even look at his girlfriend once. I see that often, these really attractive couples who don’t have much in common and they maybe go on to get married and have a family because of the social pressure.

Rebecca: Yeah I wonder about relationship equality. The idea that women should be in the home is still quite common – at least it’s not so shocking for Japanese women – whereas back home the attitude seems quite vehemently against that traditional dynamic of the alpha male and trophy wife.

Chiara: I have to say compared to back home in Italy, Japanese men help around the house and I was quite surprised by that. They’re also very attentive day to day so I would say that men aren’t as chauvinistic as cultural stereotypes make them out to be.

Any last comments?

Rebecca: Dating in Japan is just as messy and confusing as it is back home but I’ve been lucky enough to find someone really special here and I think that’s the way it works wherever you are.

Chiara: I’m really happy with how my boyfriend and I are learning to collaborate together to make a great relationship so I think if both sides are willing to make it work then it will.

Christa: Yeah I’m excited to meet more people here. I think it’s a really wonderful chance to learn and grow when you have these cultural differences to share.

A huge thank you goes out to all of the girls who took part in the dating in Japan discussion!

Have you dated in Japan? How do you feel about some of the things that were talked about? Comment below!

As you all know I keep ranting about the life of (mainly Western) foreigners here in Japan and how they’re treated in my “A German Alien in Japan” series.

When you are a non-Asian foreigner in Japan it’s very likely that Japanese people will stare at you. You’ll get compliments for your great Japanese skills after a mere “arigatou” (thank you) and you might even be treated like a superstar!

You’ll probably hear questions like “Where are you from?” or “When will you go back home?” – even though you consider Japan as your (new) home. You might feel like an outsider more often than not.

Life as a foreigner in Japan can be hard sometimes. You’ll probably feel lonely and isolated. You are “the alien” that will never be accepted as a part of Japan. Most likely you’re seen as a “temporary visitor” who will eventually leave again.

This is hard enough to deal with for most of us. Some manage better than others, but it is – and always will be – a problem foreigners in Japan have to face!

But what about people who were born in Japan by parents with no “Japanese blood”? How do foreigners born in Japan feel?

Foreigners born in Japan are not Japanese

According to the Japanese law you receive citizenship not by location of birth (jus soli), but by “the blood” (jus sanguinis) that is running through your veins. Thus, foreigners born in Japan are not Japanese citizens. As a consequence they cannot vote, for example.

This might sound weird to most of us. I suppose that the majority of my readers come from countries where you receive citizenship by “location of birth”.

If both of your parents are foreign, you are not a citizen of Japan, even if you were born there. If one of your parents is Japanese you can get Japanese citizenship through the “right of blood”.

However, there’s hope for foreigners born in Japan. It is possible to obtain Japanese citizenship as a foreigner. Even you and me can get it! It’s called “naturalization“. This is a bit complicated and it would go too far to explain the details. If you’re interested, you can read more about it here.

Japan Easy Girl

There are a few disadvantages if you want to become a Japanese citizen, though. One of the biggest is that you have to abandon your other citizenship.

Despite the disadvantages there are a fewforeign-born Japanese people (日本国籍取得者, nihon kokuseki shutokusha), people who obtained the Japanese citizenship through naturalization. Probably the most well-known person to the English-speaking blogger world is Debito Arudou.

Being a foreigner born in Japan

To be honest I never thought about this much in my early years in Japan, especially not during the so-called “honeymoon phase”.
At some point we had two “half” kids (children with a Japanese and a non-Japanese parent) at my school. They surely looked different and it was the first time I realized that they might have just as many problems as most of us foreigners here in Japan.


It wasn’t until I met a woman (a former co-worker) who was big, blonde and blue-eyed, that I realized what it means to be a “White Japanese” (白人系日本人, hakujinkei nihonjin). Apparently she had no Japanese blood running through her veins, yet she was born and raised in Japan.
Her parents (both American) moved to Japan before she was born. She speaks English and Japanese fluently. Judging by her looks NOBODY would think she’s Japanese.

I’ve told you how I feel about being treated as an outsider almost every single day here in Japan – and compared to her I might be an outsider. Can you imagine how she must feel listening to all the stupid questions about when she’s going back home or how great her Japanese is and how well she can use chopsticks?

Luckily she’s a very cheerful and humorous person and has learned to deal with it. After all she married a non-Japanese guy and has “non-Japanese” kids now who were also born and raised in Japan. It can’t be so bad. Yet I think Japan still has a lot to work on!

Sometimes when Japanese people have the typical small talk with me I like to experiment a bit:

Japanese person: “Oh, where are you from?”
(Explanation: Literally it’s more like “from where did you come today”. It’s the standard question locals ask tourists, also Japanese tourists who would usually answer from which prefecture or city they come.)

Zooming Japan: “From XY Prefecture, XY City – which is near XY City. Do you know it?”

Japanese person: “Uhm …. no, I meant, where did you live before that? ”

Zooming Japan: “Oh, I see. I used to live in XY Prefecture for 4 years before moving to XY Prefecture … ”

Japanese person: “Uhm … I mean, where were you BORN??!!”

Zooming Japan: “What do you mean?”
(More often than not I tell them at that point that I’m originally from Germany which leads to a stereotype rant about Germany.)

Japanese person: “You’re clearly not Japanese. Oh, are you maybe a half? I mean where were you born? Are your parents French?”

Zooming Japan: “No, I was born here in Japan.”
(I’m lying just to see how they react – knowing that there ARE “White Japanese”.)

Japanese person: “Oh, I see. Your Japanese is really good. When did you come to Japan?”

Zooming Japan: “ Like I said I was born and raised in Japan. I went to a Japanese elementary school and …”

Japanese person: “So, when did you come back to Japan?”

Zooming Japan: “I never left Japan …”

Japanese person: “When will you leave Japan?”

Zooming Japan: “…………..”

Japanese person: “Your Japanese is really good!”

Zooming Japan: “………….”

Well, not all the conversations are exactly like that, but I guess you get the point.
A lot of Japanese seem to be unable to imagine that a foreign person was born and raised in Japan. A foreigner will never be Japanese in their eyes. They don’t know how to deal with that kind of situation. I’ve seen most of the Japanese people I’ve “experimented” with speechless.

Besides conversations like the one above there are so many situations that will remind you of your “non-Japaneseness”.

For example, you’re required to carry some kind of ID (passport, resident card etc.) as a non-citizen of Japan.
[Until recently (July 2012) there was no “resident card” for foreigners, but something called “Alien Registration Card”.]
The police can ask you to show your ARC (Alien Registration Card) or passport at any time and you have to provide it. Japanese people don’t have to do that, of course. They can just use their driver’s license or whatever. (*This has changed with the new system and the ARC being gone. )
But how will the police know if you’re Japanese or not? Judging by your looks?

Maybe you can see how complicated life can be as a foreigner in Japan – and all the more for foreigners born in Japan.

Interview: How’s life as a “White Japanese” in Japan?

International Dating Japan

I only know from my former co-worker how “White Japanese” people might feel. But how about all the others?
Here’s an awesome video featuring interviews with “White Japanese” expressing how they felt growing up in Japan:

Hookup Culture In Japan

Japan needs to change

Japan is an island. It has been isolated for a very long time. Even nowadays there are only 1-2% foreigners living in Japan and the majority of those are of Asian descent. That’s why you – as a non-Asian foreigner – will stick out – even in our modern times and even in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka!

Of course, there’s usually no aggressive violent behavior against foreigners here in Japan, so I think we’re still better off than most foreigners in other countries. However, I think Japan needs to “grow up”, to broaden their horizon and to accept the fact that times are changing – something Japan isn’t very good at.

What do you think?

Gaijin Hunter Dating

Does Japan need to change?
Or is it good that Japan stays the way it is with mostly only “true Japanese” people living here?
Do you think it’s equally difficult for “foreigners” born in other countries?
Are you a foreigner born in Japan or do you know anybody like that? What’s your experience? How do you feel about it?