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It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if y

It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people." But that's assuming that you do have a golf group or whatever. A large number of people just go through life with their friends from elementary, junior high, or high school... and then their friends from college. Then friends from the workplace, if you make any beyond the level of "drinks after work." I know a lot of people who have "drinking friends" from various adult social circles, but their only "real" friends (in the Western sense of people you can chat to about almost anything, do almost anything with, etc.) are a tiny handful of people they've known since junior high or high school. Loneliness is a huge problem in Japan.

michaeltravis 9y ago
Will men from the workplace drift into your lifelong pals? My cousin was there last winter and was making some solid headway into a social circle, but ended up disgracing himself in a comedy of errors involving tequila and a runaway golf cart. He's back now and boasts to me that he has a way with the Japanese but I think he's always fudged up the truth some.
hkmurakami 9y ago
This is exactly my experience. I felt that the only "western level" friendships of openness and directness [1] were made before college. [1] To be fair each society has its own expectations on what interpersonal relationships should be like. American openness/directness likely isn't inherently virtuous.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  Americans are direct only about a certain set of things. My Thai friends are much more direct discussing appearance, for instance. As an American, that was actually quite a shock visiting Thailand -- but you get used to it and adjust, and now it feels weird that there is this taboo in the US. Americans are more open and direct than Japan, but I don't know that I'd say they're particularly open and direct -- about the only thing I'd say Americans are uniquely is boisterous. But that's probably still only among the developed world.
  - hkmurakami 9y ago
    That's a good point. We generally don't talk about our finances or deep personal life (vs the stereotypical Chinese aunt who demands to know your income as well as your dating history). American men tend to not talk about our emotions to one another. I'm not sure how best to describe the difference. When I talk to Japanese "friends", I feel that I am talking to a mask, or that they're playing a part. In the States, on the subjects that we are open with, we seem to want to show our true selves, whatever that may mean. In Japan I feel that every aspect of your communication is guarded.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      Its also because Japanese dont have much to talk about in the first place. Look at their media, its all tabloid level at best, and you would have a hard time finding people who talk about other things than completely mundane subjects in ANY context. I think this is mostly due to an education trying to kill any ounce of individual thinking.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        How much time have you spent in Japan or among Japanese people?
        hkmurakami 9y ago
        Iirc he lives in Japan. At least part of his position is true though -- the education system really doesn't cultivate critical thinking or original thought (other than the elite prep schools which are great at fostering individuality).
        ugfgibcvg 9y ago
        > he lives in Japan. And of course, the only person in this thread who knows what they’re talking about gets downvoted to oblivion. Never change, HN.
yodsanklai 9y ago
> It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan Certainly not unique to Japan. I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance. Surprisingly, I find it much easier to find a girlfriend than a friend. You just go to a dating website, find someone "similar" and spend time together and you can get close very quickly. It's not the way regular friendship works where it takes much longer to get intimate.
- vog 9y ago
  > I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance Not true for Berlin, though. If you regularily visit some hackerspaces (or other meetups with like-minded people, such as various user groups such as Emacs user group, political groups such as FSFE, whatever), or go to university and study there, you have very good chances finding friends, some of whom may turn out to be very good friends. Sometimes it seems hard to get into groups, but usually this is just a matter of having the courage to talk to people, and not so much a matter of being actively rejected by others (although that happens sometimes, too, of course, because every "club" has some low percentage of anti-social-minded people, but those people are easy to ignore). I assume this is true for the other large cities in Germany as well (Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, Munich, Bremen, etc.) but I don't know for sure. EDIT: To those who downvoted: Do you care to elaborate? Did you have different experiences in Berlin? (especially as technically-minded people)
  - yorwba 9y ago
    One problem with your comment is that you do not actually address the point you quote. Instead, you present an anecdote about how you went to lots of places where you met new people, had the courage to talk to them and made friends. I agree that what you described is a good way (maybe the only way) to make friends. But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing a single digit percentage, at best. For people who don't go to many social events/don't talk to many others there/don't deepen those ties as much, it's very easy to be lonely in basically any city. Making friends takes work, and success is not guaranteed; if you're not putting in that work for some reason, e.g. your personality, you'll end up without friends more likely than not. Let me present my own anecdote: I grew up in Berlin, and I certainly met lots of new people through school, sports, study groups and so on, but I always kept those separate. If I were into golf, my fellow golfers would be my "golf people", nothing more. I don't tend to attempt conversations with strangers (or people I know, for that matter), so very few of those acquaintances even learned my name. In essence, I don't have any friends. I wouldn't call myself lonely, though, since I'm happy that way. I wouldn't even know what I'd do with friends if I had any. But I'm pretty sure that there are lots of people (also in Berlin) who are living essentially the same friendless life as me and suffer for it.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
It's pretty hard to just up and make new friends in America past a certain age. Sometime after 30 a lot of people seem to decide that family and career are the only important things in life, and friends get relegated to occasional weekend meetups. They're certainly looking to make any new friends. So if you're in that age bracket and you're looking to meet people your own age, you're largely out of luck.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  You start losing energy around your 30s due to a lower metabolism, increased responsibilities, and the beginnings of health issues (for a lot of people), so going out during the week when you're already coming home worn out from work can seem like too much work. Or if you're going to the gym to maintain your health, and coming home and cooking dinner, take the dog out, do dishes, etc, well suddenly it's 9pm already and maybe you've got an hour or two at most before you need to sleep, and hey, the tv's or internet is right there... I do some things during the week with friends, but it's usually for a specific productive reason (playtest our game designs, or go to starbucks and write), and usually only once a week. But some weeks I'm too tired to do that.
ekianjo 9y ago
Loneliness is in no way limited to Japan. What you describes pretty much applies everywhere. I dont see folks in the west making their best friends late in life.
cableshaft 9y ago
This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average. But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it. And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities. Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort. I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.
- xhrpost 9y ago
  Spot-on. I'm working on this myself after making a significant move to a big city from the mid-west. Never having started from a zero friend base is tough. While our culture doesn't always make it easy to make new friends, it's also very permissive about breaking molds. I'm constantly going to different meetups and group events and trying to say 'Yes' to every invite. Even other new people to the city aren't doing this but I don't get ostracized for being different. Occasionally people are even willing to tag along.
- sdrothrock 9y ago
  > Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle As far as "making an effort" goes, I can only speak for myself (in the sense that it's not worth judging whether other people are "trying" from their appearance), but it's definitely pretty difficult to get past that initial "social circle" restriction. For example, I've worked at the same company for a few years, gone out for drinks with a few coworkers... attempts at casual chats between work, invitations to stuff beyond work, etc. are all politely rebuffed. I've also done airsoft before; with the exception of one guy who's also actively looking for friends, nobody is interested in doing anything beyond airsoft. As far as I can guess, they're in that group to do airsoft, not to make friends or do other things with those people -- they just want to do airsoft. As I said in the beginning though, this is just me and I don't think it's fair for me to judge whether other people are "making an effort," but my own efforts seem to indicate that it's a problem beyond that.

michaeltravis 9y ago

Will men from the workplace drift into your lifelong pals? My cousin was there last winter and was making some solid headway into a social circle, but ended up disgracing himself in a comedy of errors involving tequila and a runaway golf cart. He's back now and boasts to me that he has a way with the Japanese but I think he's always fudged up the truth some.

hkmurakami 9y ago

This is exactly my experience. I felt that the only "western level" friendships of openness and directness [1] were made before college. [1] To be fair each society has its own expectations on what interpersonal relationships should be like. American openness/directness likely isn't inherently virtuous.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
Americans are direct only about a certain set of things. My Thai friends are much more direct discussing appearance, for instance. As an American, that was actually quite a shock visiting Thailand -- but you get used to it and adjust, and now it feels weird that there is this taboo in the US. Americans are more open and direct than Japan, but I don't know that I'd say they're particularly open and direct -- about the only thing I'd say Americans are uniquely is boisterous. But that's probably still only among the developed world.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  That's a good point. We generally don't talk about our finances or deep personal life (vs the stereotypical Chinese aunt who demands to know your income as well as your dating history). American men tend to not talk about our emotions to one another. I'm not sure how best to describe the difference. When I talk to Japanese "friends", I feel that I am talking to a mask, or that they're playing a part. In the States, on the subjects that we are open with, we seem to want to show our true selves, whatever that may mean. In Japan I feel that every aspect of your communication is guarded.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Its also because Japanese dont have much to talk about in the first place. Look at their media, its all tabloid level at best, and you would have a hard time finding people who talk about other things than completely mundane subjects in ANY context. I think this is mostly due to an education trying to kill any ounce of individual thinking.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      How much time have you spent in Japan or among Japanese people?
      - hkmurakami 9y ago
        Iirc he lives in Japan. At least part of his position is true though -- the education system really doesn't cultivate critical thinking or original thought (other than the elite prep schools which are great at fostering individuality).
        ugfgibcvg 9y ago
        > he lives in Japan. And of course, the only person in this thread who knows what they’re talking about gets downvoted to oblivion. Never change, HN.

yodsanklai 9y ago

> It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan Certainly not unique to Japan. I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance. Surprisingly, I find it much easier to find a girlfriend than a friend. You just go to a dating website, find someone "similar" and spend time together and you can get close very quickly. It's not the way regular friendship works where it takes much longer to get intimate.

vog 9y ago
> I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance Not true for Berlin, though. If you regularily visit some hackerspaces (or other meetups with like-minded people, such as various user groups such as Emacs user group, political groups such as FSFE, whatever), or go to university and study there, you have very good chances finding friends, some of whom may turn out to be very good friends. Sometimes it seems hard to get into groups, but usually this is just a matter of having the courage to talk to people, and not so much a matter of being actively rejected by others (although that happens sometimes, too, of course, because every "club" has some low percentage of anti-social-minded people, but those people are easy to ignore). I assume this is true for the other large cities in Germany as well (Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, Munich, Bremen, etc.) but I don't know for sure. EDIT: To those who downvoted: Do you care to elaborate? Did you have different experiences in Berlin? (especially as technically-minded people)
- yorwba 9y ago
  One problem with your comment is that you do not actually address the point you quote. Instead, you present an anecdote about how you went to lots of places where you met new people, had the courage to talk to them and made friends. I agree that what you described is a good way (maybe the only way) to make friends. But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing a single digit percentage, at best. For people who don't go to many social events/don't talk to many others there/don't deepen those ties as much, it's very easy to be lonely in basically any city. Making friends takes work, and success is not guaranteed; if you're not putting in that work for some reason, e.g. your personality, you'll end up without friends more likely than not. Let me present my own anecdote: I grew up in Berlin, and I certainly met lots of new people through school, sports, study groups and so on, but I always kept those separate. If I were into golf, my fellow golfers would be my "golf people", nothing more. I don't tend to attempt conversations with strangers (or people I know, for that matter), so very few of those acquaintances even learned my name. In essence, I don't have any friends. I wouldn't call myself lonely, though, since I'm happy that way. I wouldn't even know what I'd do with friends if I had any. But I'm pretty sure that there are lots of people (also in Berlin) who are living essentially the same friendless life as me and suffer for it.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago

It's pretty hard to just up and make new friends in America past a certain age. Sometime after 30 a lot of people seem to decide that family and career are the only important things in life, and friends get relegated to occasional weekend meetups. They're certainly looking to make any new friends. So if you're in that age bracket and you're looking to meet people your own age, you're largely out of luck.

cableshaft 9y ago
You start losing energy around your 30s due to a lower metabolism, increased responsibilities, and the beginnings of health issues (for a lot of people), so going out during the week when you're already coming home worn out from work can seem like too much work. Or if you're going to the gym to maintain your health, and coming home and cooking dinner, take the dog out, do dishes, etc, well suddenly it's 9pm already and maybe you've got an hour or two at most before you need to sleep, and hey, the tv's or internet is right there... I do some things during the week with friends, but it's usually for a specific productive reason (playtest our game designs, or go to starbucks and write), and usually only once a week. But some weeks I'm too tired to do that.

ekianjo 9y ago

Loneliness is in no way limited to Japan. What you describes pretty much applies everywhere. I dont see folks in the west making their best friends late in life.

cableshaft 9y ago

This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average. But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it. And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities. Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort. I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.

xhrpost 9y ago
Spot-on. I'm working on this myself after making a significant move to a big city from the mid-west. Never having started from a zero friend base is tough. While our culture doesn't always make it easy to make new friends, it's also very permissive about breaking molds. I'm constantly going to different meetups and group events and trying to say 'Yes' to every invite. Even other new people to the city aren't doing this but I don't get ostracized for being different. Occasionally people are even willing to tag along.
sdrothrock 9y ago
> Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle As far as "making an effort" goes, I can only speak for myself (in the sense that it's not worth judging whether other people are "trying" from their appearance), but it's definitely pretty difficult to get past that initial "social circle" restriction. For example, I've worked at the same company for a few years, gone out for drinks with a few coworkers... attempts at casual chats between work, invitations to stuff beyond work, etc. are all politely rebuffed. I've also done airsoft before; with the exception of one guy who's also actively looking for friends, nobody is interested in doing anything beyond airsoft. As far as I can guess, they're in that group to do airsoft, not to make friends or do other things with those people -- they just want to do airsoft. As I said in the beginning though, this is just me and I don't think it's fair for me to judge whether other people are "making an effort," but my own efforts seem to indicate that it's a problem beyond that.