The time has come - here’s a blog post focused on dating in Tokyo, since so many people were requesting the topic. Enjoy!

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Prologue

When I first came to Tokyo I had no plans to go on dates here. But, as the months passed and I grew more settled and comfortable with my life in Japan, sometime in mid-May I got a feeling that it could be fun to try.

I started reading about which dating apps are commonly used here. Turns out the most popular apps are Japanese: Pairs and Tapple. And from the western world there’s Tinder and Bumble. The other western apps are apparently not really used.

After reading a little about the Japanese apps, I decided to hard-skip them. The reason is not language - even though they are completely in Japanese. It’s the payment model.

The model is straightforward: Women can use Pairs and Tapple for free. On the other hand, men have to pay ¥3700 (~25 euros) per month to use the basic features.

This kind of gender-based pricing is actually quite common in Tokyo. I’ve seen it in popular nightclubs, which women enter for much cheaper (or free) than men. And I even see climbing gyms and bathhouses doing such pricing.

I find this kind of pricing model silly and don’t want to support it. But seems like a lot of people are ok with it, since these apps and places are still running and even extremely popular.

I’ve understood that the Japanese dating culture is still fairly conservative and it’s not uncommon that men pay the bills in restaurants, bars etc. Maybe this stems from a traditional mentality where men are the ones having careers and more money? And because of this people are generally ok with men paying more? I am not sure.

Also makes me wonder how non-binary/queer people fit into this model, and more generally into Japanese society. Based on the strangely commercial Tokyo Pride festival I recently attended, I have a bad feeling about it. But I need to discuss this with more locals.

Aanyway, back to the main topic! I decided to try out Tinder and Bumble, since they felt a bit more familiar. Even though it turns out they also have their unique funny quirks in Japan.

Dating profile

Around late May, I made accounts on Bumble and Tinder. Since I was feeling a bit rusty branding myself on dating apps, I asked for consultation and photo feedback from some artist friends. In case you are reading this blog, thanks for the help!

I made my Bumble profile more serious when it comes to photos, text, personal details etc., since I wanted to try and find something slightly longer term there. My Tinder looks less serious (unfortunately no shirtless gym selfies, since I didn’t have any), which was quite funny to make since I never had a dating profile like that.

On both apps I wrote very clearly that I’m looking for shorter-term things, since I’m leaving Japan in September.

Let’s talk about Tinder first, since it’s funnier.

Restaurant Tinder

In Japan, Tinder has a reputation of being mostly for hookups. It also has a reputation of being quite challenging to navigate. I didn’t really understand why before I started using it.

So there I was, lying on my bed swiping away for the first time, when I suddenly realised that I was getting really hungry. And it wasn’t hunger for love.

Yupp. Most of the Tinder profiles I saw did not have any clear pictures of the person’s face or body. The names, too, were often fake or just a single letter.

Swiping through profiles like this, I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to make choices based on the spiciness of people’s food or the color of their hair.

I also found it funny that many people do actually use up like 5 photo slots, but each one is just a different dish. Makes it feel like I’m browsing a menu. I wish there was a waiter to ask for details.

Why are the profiles like this? I can only guess. And my guess is something related to conservative society, hookups and reputation. Or maybe Japanese people are just super meta and they’re collectively criticizing Tinder’s focus on appearances in an absurd satire that compares choosing people with choosing meals.

Anyway, I’m still not sure how to approach Tinder without spending silly amounts of time on the app - I might have to swipe 10 profiles to find a single one with an actual photo of their face.

Also, the vast majority of people only speak Japanese, and mine is still not that strong, which makes communication quite difficult. I write to people with a mixture of English and Japanese, but the chats usually die very early, due to a lack of a common strong language.

All in all, Tinder has indeed been a bit hard to navigate. Naturally it feels good to get matches, but since they rarely lead anywhere, I figure there are better ways to get my daily dopamine. So, over the weeks I have slowly been moving away from Tinder and just using Bumble, which I find much more exciting.

Bumble for real business

I had never used Bumble before, so I was curious to give it a try. The most surprising part about the profile creation was the option to use the app for seeking “business partners”. I’m not sure if this is a thing everywhere, but it somehow feels very Japanese.

After I finished setting up and started swiping, I immediately noticed that the quality of the profiles is way higher than Tinder. It’s like night and day.

Most people have really good photos of themselves, where they clearly show their faces. I never imagined this would feel like something special. And, many profiles even have text in English - it seems like people on the app are generally very international-minded.

So, the profiles are generally quite personal, detailed and clear about what they want, which is cool. What feels even nicer, though, is the quality of the matches and the conversations.

On Tinder, whenever I matched with somebody I usually sent them a short comment/question about something interesting in their profile. I think maybe 10 % of the people answered.

On Bumble I get a very similar amount of matches, but almost all of them are interested in talking and I’ve had many really nice chats. Most of these conversations eventually fade out, but the fact that they exist makes me happy - feels like people are actually interested.

On a completely different note, the app also gave me some info about vegetarianism in Japan. On Bumble, you can filter people by common interests and I tried doing that with “vegetarian”. When I put on this filter, and set the distance to around 100 km, I saw like 7 profiles before running out of people. For “vegan” I got maybe three - all tourists.

Of course, not every veggie marks it in their profile and probably the Bumble algorithm hides some people. But I still find the results fascinating, considering more than 30 million people live in this region. It’s the first time I got some understanding about the rarity of vegetarianism here. No wonder it’s hard to find plant-based food outside the touristic city center.

Anywaaay, I’ve been really positively surprised by Bumble in Tokyo! But let’s talk about some dates I’ve had so far from the apps.

First date in Japan - Ice climbing

Less than a week after I installed Bumble I got a match that I was really excited about. They were into hiking, bouldering, arts and a vegetarian. And I generally found them really cute. They were also a foreigner, but they’d lived in Japan for a longer time already.

Cool, what a great match. We quickly agreed on a date, and they suggested we’d go bouldering. Sounds good, sign me up!

We chatted for 4-5 days and met on a Saturday afternoon at a bouldering gym in the center.

They definitely looked like their photos, and seemed nice and talkative, but there was something off. First, I thought we were both just nervous - I know I was. But there was this feeling of the air being heavy and cold around us, and that feeling never really cleared out.

I just couldn’t find a way to feel relaxed with this person, which is quite rare for me. I felt like if I told a funny story, they didn’t laugh. If I cheered them after they clamb a wall, they didn’t seem amused. I felt we didn’t understand each other, like we were communicating through a frozen wall. The only topic we could really discuss was hiking, everything else felt like a struggle.

After the bouldering we still went to eat in a restaurant nearby. Some strange stuff came up during the meal like them not actually having a university degree - even though they’d written on their Bumble profile that they have a Master’s. And them not actually being a vegetarian.

Now, neither of these things is usually a deal-breaker for me, but lying about them does feel quite weird. And silly - they genuinely had a really interesting life story and seemed like a nice human being. I don’t see why they’d need to make things up.

At the end of the date, I hesitantly suggested we could go bouldering again some time, thinking that maybe this amazing-on-paper situation could still be remedied. They hesitantly agreed. But I think we both knew we wouldn’t meet again.

There was probably something off-putting about me for them as well and because of this they couldn’t relax. But that’s ok, I’m still happy we met. I got some new perspectives and felt inspired by their curiosity and bravery to hike and explore alone!

This was my first first date in more than six years. So, half of the date I was trying to convince myself that maybe I’ve just forgotten that first dates always feel this difficult. Do they?

2nd first date - Tokyo moon

No, they do not.

To my complete surprise, I actually had a nice chat with a person on Tinder. They had a funny profile and a face and a body, and they seemed smart, and they sometimes wrote lol in their messages like this LOL. I was sold.

They really liked the moon, so we decided to go look at the moon together. We agreed to meet on a Friday night in Shinjuku, since they knew a nice spot for looking at the night sky there.

So, on a Friday evening, we met with ゆ in the center, and they took me to a really cool place where we could look at the city from the 54th floor for free.

Up in the tower, we were walking and talking around, looking down at the city and up at the moon through the windows.

It’s hard to describe how easy and relaxed it all felt. Their English was really good and we were just talking about everything, from life in Tokyo to childhood memories to movies. And we were laughing really hard all evening, my abs were hurting towards the end. We had a very similar sense of humour.

After the tower closed for the night, we still hung out outside. We drew portraits of each other, which was absolutely hilarious since both of us suck at that (well, at least I do).

All in all, it was just a really wholesome romantic evening and I was smiling all the way home. I didn’t mind that we wouldn’t meet again - they were generally looking for something long-term - I just felt happy about the date and about knowing that such cool, smart and attractive people exist and want to meet me. I guess it restored my faith in the whole scene.

Afterwards, we still texted a bit and I repeated my promise that when they come to Finland, I’ll take them somewhere equally cool to look at the moon. They were happy and curious if we could see the northern lights too. I said I am not sure but I’d try my best. I will.

ゆ is the sole reason why I was debating for some weeks whether to delete Tinder or not - she gave me hope for meeting other cool people there. In the end, I still deleted it. But now I definitely feel happy about trying it out.

3rd first and second date - Photos, shower heads and sunsets

I matched with ま on Bumble and noticed from the very first messages that she was really energetic and talkative. We chatted a lot about photography and music and traveling, and agreed to go on a date to the Tokyo photography museum.

We met at a central train station on a rainy Saturday afternoon and walked to the museum. On the way there, I already realised that she spoke great English and was really easy to talk with.

The exhibition wasn’t that big, and we still felt like hanging out after. It was quite rainy, so we went into a shopping mall nearby and sat on comfy chairs and tried funny hats and walked around looking at shower heads and other normal things.

We also went to a book shop and were trying to find books for Japanese learners learning English so that I could use them in reverse. Didn’t have much luck, but we ended up looking at and talking about a lot of books.

I was considering asking her to go eat, since I was starting to feel hungry and was guessing that so was she. But, maybe traumatised from the previous restaurant date, I figured we should end this date while it’s still fun.

So, we walked to the station and took the same train for a few stops. We both wanted to meet again, maybe for a sunset photography walk.

A week later, we met again for the walk! I picked her up at my home station, and we walked to a hill in a park to stare at the setting sun.

We sat on the stairs for a while, and then on a bench, talking about life. After it got dark, we stayed a while longer to look at the city lights below.

At some point, we moved to a playground and clamb onto the roof of a two-floor castle playing thingy (like actually clamb, you wouldn’t usually go there). We lay there for some hours next to each other looking at the stars, sometimes chatting, sometimes quiet. The evening was pleasantly warm and there was nobody there. We were trying to see shooting stars.

Heading back to the station, we walked through the park, and still stopped to check the spot where I’d seen fireflies before. We found them again, and were looking at them for some time, since to my surprise she’d never seen them before. They are quite magical, greenish white blinking lights dancing in the dark.

Afterwards, I walked with ま to the station and we said bye! I returned home to prepare for a hike the next day.

As disgustingly romantic as this date might sound, I am still a bit unsure what we are with ま. I like her, she’s smart and kind, and we have shared some nice talks and silences and experiences already, but I’m still not sure if we’re meeting romantically or as friends.

I really felt like holding her hand a few times already, but she hasn’t really given any cues that she’d like that. I’ve given some, but I am not sure if she has noticed them or not.

It makes me wonder if this is a cultural thing, and we’re just missing each other’s signs. I have rarely seen Japanese couples holding hands and never seen them kissing in public - I feel public displays of affection are not common here.

She seemed eager to meet again, and we talked about going to cinema together. Maybe after the next meeting I’ll have a better understanding of where we are at. In any case, I don’t want to rush things, even if I’m here for a short time. She has said that it takes her time to get to know people, so I’ll just enjoy the dates and see where it all goes!

4th first date - teamLab

Before the 3rd first date, I had met another cool person on Bumble. Mi was also a foreigner living in Japan for some time, but she was from another East Asian country.

We had a nice short chat about museums and art, and pretty quickly agreed to go to teamLab together. We met there on a Sunday afternoon.

It took us almost three hours to go through all the rooms, since the place was massive. It was built like a labyrinth, and there were a lot of mirrors which made the rooms look like they continue forever.

Once we finished, we were both feeling a bit overwhelmed, since we’d been surrounded by moving walls and roofs and floors for so long. I still felt like the walls were spinning when we walked out.

We were both a bit hungry so we decided to go have some dinner together. We walked to a cozy restaurant and I ate Japanese curry for the first time (they had two vegan options, wow). It was all good! My first date restaurant trauma has officially been cleared.

It was definitely a fun date and we had some fascinating chats about East Asian beauty standards and other things. Perhaps I didn’t feel an immediate strong connection, but Mi is super nice and fun so I’m interested to see what might develop. We agreed to meet again in her neighborhood, where she could show me around. I’m looking forward to it!

Epilogue

I used to think that doing things by myself is just a more boring version of doing them with friends.

And so, at the start of my stay in Tokyo, I was almost desperately looking for a tight group of friends with whom I could adventure, share cool events and do anything and everything with.

I never found such a group here.

At first, I was quite sad about it. Somehow unsure how to enjoy my life without one. But I’ve started to think of it as something positive. Now, I’m slowly learning something I never knew I still need to learn - to appreciate my own company.

Looking at my diary, some of the happiest notes are from the days when I had nothing planned, but just spontaneously packed my bag, picked a spot a couple of hours out of Tokyo and took the train there.

Some time ago, I’d have huge social anxiety walking into a random Japanese bakery in a village and buying bread. Now it’s normal and, however silly this might sound, it makes me feel brave. The interactions might be very awkward but so what - they always work out.

Before I’d never go to a restaurant alone, since I thought they were just for meeting friends. Now I realise it can feel great to eat and celebrate by myself, without any real reason.

This attitude, of having fun doing things solo, is a big change that I’ve observed in myself over the months, and I’m really happy about it. I think it would’ve never happened if I didn’t have lonely days.

And I’ve realised I don’t actually need a stable friend group to enjoy my life here.

I have a hiking friend, I have some climbing friends and karaoke friends and beach friends and party friends. Maybe I’m not that close with any of them, but I am lucky to have amazing friends back in Europe with whom I can call to talk about deeper things. And I now even have romantic friends to go on dates with.

And on the days when I’m not meeting any of these friends, I don’t need to feel lonely, since I can always hang out with my best friend. The one who is always there and wants to see all the same places that I do. The one who no longer has a fear of an empty calendar.