After reading this question, I wanted to share my perspective as a man. If I genuinely cared about and loved someone, I’d still give her an allowance in months when we couldn’t meet due to her circumstances. I’d also do everything I could to keep another man from taking her away—and that’s what I do.

I was bored on the night shift, so I followed the river upstream and ended up here. I read the linked post too. That “serious love” you’re talking about is “serious love while playing the dating-club game,” right? You’re intimate and exchange an allowance, and you give your favorite girl a generous allowance. You’re calling the ultimate answer to the equation “allowance = a man’s feelings” serious love. From the woman’s perspective, of course she’s happy to receive money, and when women brag about being loved at a dating club, it ultimately turns into bragging about how much their papa (a male supporter) gave them. And as a man, if you can generously pay the woman you like, that makes you look pretty cool too. But that just means you’re “playing the game properly,” doesn’t it? Normally, when you genuinely fall for someone, you refuse to take money from them. In fact, the moment he tries to give you money as before, you get upset. You stop caring about time efficiency and want to share an unlimited amount of time with her, clinging to her so much it becomes a nuisance. Chatting every night until one of us falls asleep is honestly exhausting, but I still can’t bring myself to brush her off. When we’re undressed, she clings to me so tightly that I’m convinced she must have been a squid or an octopus in a past life—there’s no other explanation for how she can create that much physical contact. And yet, more than her face or figure, it’s her body heat that gets me worked up. Even so, she registered with a dating club because she needs the money. So she desperately comes up with reasons why she needs the allowance. The man, unable to accept that, gets genuinely angry. “So in the end, it’s all about the money? If you’re struggling, I’ll support you—but explain it to me properly. Then I’ll support you.” The logic makes sense, but it’s still a man’s romantic idealism. The woman can’t completely surrender because she’s human, so she resists and tries to construct a story with the bare minimum of lies. But the man still isn’t satisfied. Eventually, she lashes out at him, attacking him as a “clever little schemer,” and things spiral into a vicious cycle. Before long, they’re having a huge shouting match—loud enough to make the taxi driver visibly uncomfortable. Then they break up thinking, “This is the worst,” only to start missing each other after a few days and contact one another again. And the cycle repeats forever. It isn’t cool at all. Even talking about it is embarrassing, and it’s something I could only discuss anonymously. There’s nothing to brag about or tell anyone. All that remains is the memory of two people who were both serious, pushed to their limits, yet refused to give up and collided with each other without caring how they looked. Those memories pile up over time, and the two people become one-of-a-kind presences in each other’s lives. Since it’s just a word, I think it’s fine for everyone to define it differently. But to me, this is what “serious love” means. If someone asked me directly, “Is this what you want?” I’d probably say no. But without it, something feels lacking, as though it isn’t real, and in the end I find myself stepping into that territory anyway. These days, I’ve got one situation that’s starting to get a little scorched and another that smells like fermented pickles quietly underway（笑）. Taro

I do like the girl I give the most money to—my ace—but it’s not romantic love at all. In fact, we’re looking for a marriage partner for her together, and I listen to her reports about dates with potential boyfriends as if it were nothing. So I’m far from being genuinely in love with her. It’s more about the satisfaction of having her as “mine,” or maybe a collector’s instinct. Something like that. I’m not genuinely in love, but even in months when we don’t meet, I naturally pay the monthly amount we agreed on. It’s partly a sense of obligation, or maybe because I want to play the gentleman. I have several other girls on monthly arrangements too, but I’m not genuinely in love with them either. Besides, doesn’t the word “love” disappear from the dictionary the moment you start giving someone money? It does for me. There’s also a girl I met fairly recently whom I put on a monthly arrangement even though we’ve never had an adult relationship. I did it because she asked me to. I’d probably still give her the monthly amount even if we didn’t meet once that month, but if that kept happening repeatedly, I’d probably end things.

As I’ve mentioned several times, my beloved papa doesn’t give me an allowance when we’re together. When he’s away for months on a long-term business trip, he gives me something like an allowance to make up for the loneliness. That said, he does occasionally give me expensive gifts, so I may not be able to say I receive no support at all. But we don’t have any pay-per-meeting or monthly arrangement. I think both my papa and I have genuine romantic feelings for each other. Marika

My papas are genuinely in love with me, but even when we couldn’t meet for two months after Japan’s first state of emergency was declared during the pandemic, they still sent my allowance every month. In fact, with one of them, that situation led to a monthly arrangement—he said, “Since we can’t meet, I’ll send it to you anyway.” I feel like they would still give me my allowance if something similar happened again, or if either of us had personal circumstances that made it impossible to meet. Maybe it’s because we’ve been seeing each other for a long time, but I feel like we’ve built a relationship of trust. So rather than saying that men who are genuinely in love are stingy with their allowance, I think it’s more that a genuinely in-love papa who’s also wealthy won’t hesitate to spend money.

I’ve wondered whether “gachi-koi” is really the right term too, but as long as I’m seeing someone seriously and treating her well, I make sure she receives the same fixed amount every month, regardless of what our relationship involves. Also, to help her feel secure, we’ve stayed in touch every day since we started seeing each other, and she always replies. In our case, there’s a big age gap, so we’re both completely aware that it’s a transactional relationship—but it works really well for us（笑).

There have been men who said things like: “Now that we’ve been intimate at the hotel, this is a romantic relationship, so I don’t need to give you an allowance, right?” (This was reported by a woman. Of course, the club presumably warned him and told him that repeating it would result in expulsion.) There have also been women among the past respondents who said they were given only transportation money after things were over. Since transportation money is supposed to be a thank-you for dinner, it makes you wonder whether men who want to pay afterward are all like this. And besides, giving her only that amount afterward at the hotel effectively means he was intimate with her without giving her an allowance. It was awful. There are many other examples, too. Some people do things that are unbelievable to those who are properly active in a dating club. Members probably only hear bits and pieces of information from one another, but from the staff’s perspective, all kinds of reports come in. There are quite a few people who make us think they should be expelled. Recently, a man was expelled for drunk driving. When a woman first reported it, he denied doing it, so unfortunately the matter ended with a warning. But then another woman reported him for drunk driving as well. Perhaps he thought he could get away with denying it again, but Universe Club isn’t that lenient. He was expelled. Even though the “Universe Police” page says they deal with these matters strictly, and has “Don’t underestimate us” written in huge letters, I still can’t understand why some people take it so lightly. I suppose respectable members probably think, “They just write that for show. There’s no way any actual member would do something like that.” But in reality, women send us all kinds of reports every day. Like the questioner, I can’t help wishing that every member were a good person.

If we’d been close for several years, I’d probably still give her an allowance even if we couldn’t meet, so she could get by. There are probably three people I’d be willing to go that far for. I’ve actually done it before, and I’ve known all of them for more than three years. If it were a more casual relationship, I wouldn’t go that far. If we couldn’t meet, that would be the end of it. Well, I guess I’m just stating the obvious.

That’s completely different. Isn’t she keeping you around by offering a generous allowance, whether you meet or not, so that another man doesn’t take you away? If it were real love (or playing at it), there’s no way she’d go a whole week without seeing you. Even going two days without meeting would feel like forever. If there have been times when you didn’t meet for a month, and things continued anyway, I think you’re both treating it as a transactional relationship. Also, in your previous question, she was seeing multiple people, and it was more like pseudo-romance—not real love (or playing at it). And as for: > She can’t meet because of her own circumstances (and it’s not due to COVID) Calling that real love makes you look completely delusional. You’d be better off treating it as a transactional relationship, like Mr. Loser does. (A woman doing papa-katsu wouldn’t be unable to meet for an entire month; she may be meeting a fun, generous papa dozens of times a month...)