Happy new year guys, hope you’re spending wonderful holidays.I’m really new to reddit as well as here so fogive me if I make any mistakes or break rules.
I’m a male Japanese student who’s a first year in uni, started living in Tokyo from last April. My problem I’ve been having since then is: I cannot make friends.
When I enrolled in my uni and met the other freshmen, I tried to make friends with them but I ended up with no one to stick together. Well that was kind of expected since I’ve been in trouble with making Japanese friends for some reason, which led to most of my friends online being foreigners. I’m fine with that anyway as I’m simply more interested in different cultures as well as people, so I most likely gave up making any new Japanese friends, and started trying to make foreign friends. There were more international students in my uni after last September so I’ve talked to some of them. They were nice, they would give me their insta or LINE and they sometimes your English very gooded me. Then we started messaging on these apps, but they suddenly seemed to be reluctant and not super keen to keep the conversation at all.
One case that is still stuck on my head is that I talked to a foreign girl in a class who was not in the class last semester, we had kinda a nice conversation with another Japanese girl there and we planned to grab some food sometime soon, but either of them kept postponing the schedule and the plan is now completely gone. The foreign girl still seemed to be nice in DM but then ignored me for days all of sudden, and then she messaged me out of nowhere that she doesn’t really read DMs even though she keeps posting stuff from time to time. Then she told me she wanted to show me something and would show after the class in a few days, but shes literally gone from the classroom right freakingly after the class ended. Had several DMs since then but never got a chance to talk to her in person because I’m not quite an extroverted person myself and felt like I’m avoided lol. She later DM’d me and asked me something about the class, was texting nice, immediately read my answers to her questions, then I asked her something, the message still remains unread after a month. I don’t know if this is something normal in other countries but this really demotivated me. Other than this, I was in Shibuya with an American friend (who’s from online I knew for ages and never treats me like others) and met some Americans, we had a conversation in English and I was introducing myself and when I said I’m Japanese, one of them literally said ewwwww and made weird facial expression, then she said “NONONO I DIDN’T MEAN THAT SORRY…” ??? I was like WHAT IS WRONG BEING A JAPANESE IN JAPAN??? then they just continued the conversation without me. Not that my English is good enough to always catch up with the conversation, but they obviously stopped talking to/looking at me and I actually felt being discriminated against lol…
Sorry this became longer than I expected but my question here is: do foreigners not want to interact with Japanese people (well Japanese men specifically) or is what I’ve been doing wrong? I need some opinions since most of my experiences with foreigners in Japan were not quite nice in the end but since I’m not doing that well with Japanese people, it could be me the one doing wrong. But at this point I’m going to get an existential crisis.
24 comments
I think you just met some weird people.
Most people who move to Japan should expect to interact with… Japanese people. All of my foreigner friends have plenty of Japanese friends, as do I.
You’re spending time with college age Americans. Even compared to normal university students, they are extremely immature. Not worth wasting energy on these people.
Foreign people don’t hate Japanese people, you’re just chasing after weird, immature people. Try to make friends in a hobby group instead of messaging girls. Girls don’t want to meet you after DMs because they don’t want you to fall in love, probably.
90% of the foreigners I’ve met here are completely bizarre and mentally ill (thank your anime and manga industry for that).
You met some weirdos. Thats it. No one I have ever known here is “avoiding Japanese men”.
I dont mean to pry or anything – how are you weight-wise? (Average /overweight etc)
Would you say you’re “average” looking dude?
What sort of topics do you chat about, (if you’re aware of it)?
I just didnt get enough info from your original post to understand why folks are interacting with you the way they do… it is weird that you’re not friends with japanese people, but not uncommon…
Having said that, you may have been unlucky with the folks youve met thus far.
Sorry you had that experience. Those kids were the minority, I’d hope. It seems like it’d be pretty obvious that you should expect to interact/make friends with primarily Japanese when you decide to move to Japan.
Quite honestly I don’t get along with Japanese people. I’ve been living in Japan for a while and speak Japanese but I’m not actively seeking to make anymore japanese friends. Of course, I don’t hate them but I just find it hard to get a long with them. Many of my friends feel the same.
Okay so you mentioned that your online friends are foreigners—-but these are people who like to be online and text entire conversations. A lot of people don’t like to do that! That’s probably your problem. If you meet people in the real world, go do real world things. Ask them if they want to get coffee or lunch or study after class. If you met them at a bar, ask them to go to another bar. If you met at a music event, ask if they want to go to another. Don’t assume people like to text a lot, you have to ask.
I’m sorry you’re going through that, from your side of the story those don’t seem like nice people. Anecdotally, I’m a foreigner and even in my home country it took me a long time and a lot of failure before I made some real friends in college. It sounds like you have some good online friends who can meet up. When it comes to friendships, give as much as you get. As a foreigner new to japan, I would love to make some japanese friends, and I know plenty of foreign students who feel the same and we are struggling to make friends just like you. Try focus on the good people, do things you enjoy, and ignore the dumbasses.
Treat everyone you come across as an individual, not an American, a Japanese, etc. Everyone is different, it just sounds like you had some experiences which were not entirely favorable to you. It’s also helpful to know that there is always a positive side to every situation. In the end, you gained some valuable experience in regards to interacting with people and building your social skills. Don’t give up, you will eventually find some friends. There’s a phrase in English which is helpful to remember, ” A good friend is hard to find. ” Best wishes and happy new year.
I think you may just have met some weird people. I’m also going to say that some, not all, of the foreigners who come to Japan are not exactly socially competent. That said:
“we planned to grab some food sometime soon, but either of them kept postponing the schedule and the plan is now completely gone”
Making plans at an indefinite time in the future is a way of politely ending a conversation. It’s usually understood as a social cue to make an exit. Following up on those plans often would come across as awkward and imposing. A genuine “let’s get together soon” is more definite. “What are you doing this weekend?” or something that is not just vaguely in the future. You should understand that a vague time in the future is a way of politely expressing “not now”.
There are plenty of regular folks who moved to Japan for family reasons but that’s probably not the crowd that the op hangs out with.
There are a whole bunch of reasons that people may or may not want to hang out with you and one of the least relevant ones is going to be the fact that you are Japanese. One of life’s challenges is finding your people. Not everyone is going to be a good fit for a friend that is compatible with you. Don’t worry so much about people that don’t want to be your friend and find people that do.
It’s quite the opposite lol
Most people who comes to japan is eager to interact but their interest got dwindled by either they got ignored or got prejudiced by the majority.
Then they just got tired and don’t care anymore.
It’s just part of uni life, be outgoing , meet lots of peeps and some will just click and you can filter out the rest. Pretty sure this happens everywhere in the world.
It just sounds like you’ve met a bunch of assholes. Keep trying, making friends is hard, especially as a dude I think.
Some foreigners are afraid of Japanese who actively seek out foreigners with the goal of improving their English, because it doesn’t feel like a real friend. It could be that you’re coming across as a “gaijin hunter” which makes people feel like you’re not really interested in them specifically, just in befriending foreigners.
A way to avoid this would be to switch to Japanese more often than English. Show more interest in people’s hobbies than their home countries.
I don’t know of this is the reason behind your experiences. Everyone is different and maybe you just met people who aren’t very friendly. But most people are not actively avoiding making Japanese friends in Japan.
I think women specifically might have bad experiences with japanese men. I used to have some japanese male friends but then one time when one of them was over at my house he kept touching me in a creepy way without asking even though he knows I am a lesbian and wouldn’t leave until I basically had to throw him out. The guy always seemed pretty normal before that and we had hung out a lot. Since then I don’t really interact with japanese men because unfortunately way too many of them are just sexist and disrespectful that I don’t trust them. And I think a lot of foreign girls have similar bad experiences. My only Japanese friends now are women.
Otherwise a lot of the reasons why I wouldn’t hang out with some japanese people is either 1) a lot of japanese people are very judgemental or conservative 2) if they treat me like a zoo animal or a child or 3) I hate tatemae because it feels like people aren’t being genuine and it can be impossible to drag an honest opinion or deep conversation out of someone, whereas most foreigners I meet are very open and will happily tell you all about their entire life story.
Pretty much all my japanese friends are those who have lived abroad before so they usually don’t do those things. If you wanna meet foreign friends you could probably make a ton if you go out drinking in Shibuya
I’m going to be honest here; you say you don’t have Japanese friends, you also have trouble finding foreign friends. It seems like from your own description you’re not doing well at making friends in-person at all, and I think you likely need to try to look objectively at why that might be.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s address each situation. First off, it’s not ideal to group everyone together. As someone else said, everyone is an individual — more so amongst Americans with the country being so large. You yourself are grouping all “foreigners” together.
What does an American and a Bolivian person have in common? A French and a person from Botswana? Same as a Japanese person and an Italian? See what I’m saying here? It’s not just foreigners vs. Japanese — every one is different and has different cultures and beliefs. This is a concept I’ve seen presented a lot here: Japanese and “others”.
Ok, with that being said, as for the girl from your university — hell, who knows? Maybe she thought you were hitting on her? Maybe you came off as weird to her? Doesn’t matter. Seems like the friendship was one-sided — move on. There are more people to meet. Seems you gave this person way too much attention. You need to block and delete.
Now, as for the group of Americans. When you introduced yourself, why did you say you were Japanese? Not that it matters, but it can seem a bit weird — although I see some Japanese people doing it a lot. Like, “Hello, I’m so-and-so, and I’m Japanese.” Who cares, right? That information is only important if it’s relevant.
As for the person saying “ewwwwww” or whatever, I have made similar jokes. Example, if a person I’ve just met tells me they are Canadian, I might joke, “sorry to hear that”, or “well, nobody is perfect.” It’s just a light hearted rib at my brothers to the north (I’m American). Perhaps the person was doing something similar? Or they were just an asshole. I’m leaning towards them being an asshole.
Some people come here and get jaded because *they can’t* make friends with Japanese people and decide to avoid **ALL** Japanese people…I’ve seen it happen, several times.
Hell, I don’t go out of my way to meet Japanese people (guys in particular that are born and raised here), either. After so many years, I don’t think it’s worth the effort, nor do I have the desire. Nothing against Japanese guys, just if it hasn’t happened after all this time, I don’t expect or plan it to happen. The only Japanese guys I’m cool with have been raised abroad.
**tl;dr**: You probably just met a few weird people, or misread some communication layers. Don’t draw too many conclusions about the situations. Meet more people. Also, your username is already raising some red flags, bro…You might be coming off as a bit of a try-hard to fit in with your idea of “foreignness.”
Now I am working with many team members who are from foreign countries. I have never seen them treat Japanese people in a particular way. They are all friendly, polite, and respectful toward us.
From what I read and heard on the internet, the opposite is true. Lots of foreigners say it’s difficult having Japanese friends.
I think you need to meet those people who want to know Japanese locals.
Honestly sounds like you’re just trying to pick up foreign women at your school and they’re acting weird to dissuade you.
Check your approach because you’re probably coming on too strong. I don’t think it’s a Japanese thing. They’re just not interested in you.
Honestly it sounds like you’ve met a bunch of dickheads (which is a pretty common occurance here unfortunately).
As for making friends/meeting new people. Hobby groups, various activities… most should have restarted now.
Are you coming across as clingy? Do you immediately text back and send way more then you get?
In my case I don’t try to invest time into people who don’t share the same hobbies. With language barriers added on top it’s a lot of work to keep up a friendship.
Anecdotal 90% of my friends come from my hobby and it’s the shared interest that make the language barrier issues easier. 10% from work.
When I first came here tried to make lots of friends but got ghosted a lot and ghosted as well. Start with a stricter criteria for making a friend and if they don’t meet it then move on.
Stop trying to make friends and you will make them easier. If your not married and young, then people around your age might not be looking for friends. If your friends with married people don’t except to text a lot, work and family take a lot of time. I have to schedule in meets with my old friends once 3-6months online chat(from the USA). Other than that just talk to your friends at your hobby.
I am also an introvert so take everything with a grain of salt.