I am a guy and I have been using Hellotalk for a while and this is one of the things that I have found that it is hard to build friendship with other guys. Like the conversation never seems to continue 既読スルー、未読スルーされたりとか and not being able to break 敬語 。
Like there is this guy who is the same age as me who I have been messaging for months (he is very slow to reply) but we still talk in 敬語。Even if I try to break it he always replies in 敬語 so we stick to it.
And then I find with girls (even girls that are younger than me) generally speak タメ口 or are quick to switch to it. Like it’s not uncommon for the first message to be 「よろしくね」
Does anyone else have this experience or have any idea as to why this is?
6 comments
I (F) was speaking to a guy on Hellotalk once about anime and tried to break 敬語, since I hadn’t talked in 敬語 to most other people… girls especially… and he replied with 敬語 so I remained in 敬語 from then on.
…. actually it’s possible he replied with my own sentence back to me in 敬語…. it was sometime last year so I don’t quite remember.
In any case, I figured it was just because he was an older guy. Maybe it’s a guy thing?
Why don’t you just ask if casual speech is okay? Are you trying to learn casual speech, or are you just wondering when this will happen? If it’s only been months and that guy is slow to respond, it doesn’t sound like you’d be close enough to even consider each other as friends.
I never thought about it much before, but yeah, talking with females does seem more casual from the get go. I do find dudes more more standoffish over there compared to females though.
You could just ask if its ok to just speak casually. Or just speak casually and see how the other person responds.
Keep in mind though, that some japanese dont speak casually even with other japanese / friends. It depends on the personality.
Japanese people don’t necessarily “switch” to plain forms as easily as foreigners might think they should — it depends on the person, but I think it’s perfectly normal for someone communicating over the Internet to want to continue to use politer speech. It wouldn’t necessarily be seen as insulting, distant, or unfriendly by Japanese people.
If you say one thing casually, I don’t think it necessarily stands out like you think it does. I always just ask if it’s okay and usually nobody cares and just drop it.
You’re pushing your cultural expectations on him when you should just learn from the situation. You’re a random stranger from the internet to him, not his family or close friend.