I’m half Japanese and been living in Japan for the past half a year or so after graduating uni in Australia, planning on living for the foreseeable future. When I first came to Japan I was working as an English teacher and ended up quitting due to a number of problems I and other staff had with the company.
When I was working there, I was working with other foreigners like myself and being surrounded by people I could get along with and not feeling like I had to be as cautious about being polite or professional almost made it worth working there. While I did get along with many staff and did occasionally spend time hanging out outside of work, after quitting there’s not been many opportunities or reasons to hang out anymore.
Working at a new company with all Japanese staff has been great in terms of immersing myself into my culture and improving my Japanese. However, all the other staff are over 30 (mostly 50s) while I’m 22 and a foreigner so while they are all super nice and take care of me, I don’t know if I could become good friends outside of work due to the large cultural and age differences. I’ve also noticed Japanese people are less interested in making friends and socialising at work.
I’ve tried to use language exchange apps to make friends but almost only ever get messages from guys who are using it like a dating app. When I reach out to girls, most of the times it feels transactional as they solely want to speak to learn English and I feel like a language tutor. I have made a few friends on the app but working full time now, I barely have time to create or maintain meaningful friendships.
I wake up at 6am, exercise and get ready, leave the house at 8am, start work at 10am, finish at 6-7pm, get home 7-8pm, and by the time I’m finished and ready for bed it’s 10pm. On the weekends I meet my boyfriend and Sunday afternoon I do house chores and call my family.
I’ve contemplated joining sports clubs or other sort of club activities but I genuinely don’t think I have the time to fit it into my schedule. If I had weekends off I think I could open a few hours but meeting my boyfriend is usually the only thing I look forward to during my work week and even a full day together feels like a few hours.
I want to make friends in the sense of meaningful friendships, which seems impossible alongside Japanese working hours. It doesn’t help that most people my age are still uni students and are more focused on partying and having fun which I don’t have the energy for.
Ideally I would love to have a small groups of friends who are somewhat similar in terms of living/working schedules, similar background or experiences, and similar in age. Since almost no one has time to physically meet, even a group chat to share feelings and daily chats would be nice. I’m just sick of transactional type relationships or guys looking for more than just friendship.
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way as I’ve had this conversation many times with fellow foreigners but they also don’t seem to have the energy to go out of their way to make friendships either. It’s hard to even know where to start after trying a number of ways. I would love to make friends with other Japanese people who also speak fluent Japanese but don’t fully feel Japanese due to their overseas upbringing.
Can anyone here relate and how did you go about making friends here?
by Adept_Turnip_1341