I’m a female member in my late 20s, and I have a boyfriend. I’ve continued papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) even after getting into a relationship because it supports me both financially and emotionally.
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Of course, I love and respect my boyfriend, but there are aspects of our sex drives and personalities that don’t mesh, so I’m not confident I’ll want to stay with him forever.
Even in ordinary relationships—not just papa-katsu—I find myself thinking, “Maybe there’s someone better out there,” even after I’ve found someone special. As a result, I regularly see multiple papas and cheat.
I thought I might eventually settle down, but even now that I’m approaching 30, I haven’t changed much. Lately, I’ve been increasingly disgusted with myself.
Do any of you ever feel that way about yourselves? I’d appreciate any advice on how to stay committed to one particular person. Please keep the advice non-sexual.
👤Asked byGuest👩GenderFemale🎂20s👑Universe female member
I haven’t grown tired of it, so I’m happily continuing to see multiple papas through papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan).
Both self-loathing and happiness come from within, so I believe it all depends on how you choose to think about it.
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I’m Potassium, a female member.
I’m always disappointed in myself.
But I also think that feeling disappointed means I’m able to look at myself objectively, which means I still have plenty of room to grow. When I feel that way, I’m in a fog, and then I end up feeling disappointed in myself for being that way too. I try to make sure it doesn’t turn into a vicious cycle.
Since we’re around the same age, I can somewhat understand how you feel about relationships. But I’ve already broken free of those restraints, in both good ways and bad, haha.
I live as freely as possible.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with never settling down. To me, a settled life feels like simply waiting to die. If that’s the case, I’d rather keep searching for something new, something fun, or a smart choice—anything at all—and grow old that way. I feel like I’ll be able to live happily for longer, and maybe reduce the amount of “I wish I’d done that” regrets I have at the end.
And if you get tired of constantly chasing after things, you can always take a break for a while.
Do you prefer stability or excitement? Even if you like both, which one carries more weight for you?
I feel like if you throw yourself wholeheartedly into whichever matters more to you, you’ll naturally break free of your restraints—if that’s what you want, anyway, haha.
That said, when you do break free, you absolutely need to have your own convictions and way of thinking firmly in place. You also need to be aware of the consequences of your choices and who might be hurt by them—like someone being hurt by cheating or an affair. Otherwise, you’ll just become a terrible person.
I’m prepared to carry the guilt of hurting someone as a consequence of choosing to live the way I want. That’s the responsibility I accept for my choices, and I intend to keep carrying it.
That’s just my personal opinion.
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Recently, when I talk to women I’m dating, I sometimes hear them say things like, “I have a boyfriend, but I don’t see myself marrying him.”
It’s only natural that the more you learn about someone, the more of their less appealing sides you start to notice.
Just as none of us are perfect, there’s no such thing as a perfect partner. At some point, you have to compromise—or rather, accepting some imperfections is necessary.
In a sense, marriage is something you take the plunge into.
My ex-wife had plenty of things I didn’t like, too. But perhaps it was fate—or simply because she was the most important person in my life at that point—that I decided to marry her.
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I’m around 50 myself, and that’s pretty much how I feel.
They say the character formed in childhood lasts a lifetime.
Build a financial foundation that lets you live independently, and keep papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) as just one of life’s pleasures. Make sure you can get by even without your papa’s allowance.
Once you do that, dating your papa can be genuinely fun.
Marika
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There’s often a gap between the person you want to become—or feel you should be—and who you actually are, and that can make you dislike yourself, right?
I’ve struggled with something similar too. Even when I was dating someone specific, or even married to someone specific (lol), there was a period when I kept looking for the next person, thinking, “Maybe there’s someone even better out there.” Back then, I probably had the same kind of concerns as you.
The key to overcoming this is accepting yourself as you are.
No matter what anyone says or what society generally considers normal, you are who you are, and you can’t change those fundamental parts of yourself. It’s important to accept that you may not be able to change the part of you that keeps searching for “someone better.”
At the same time, you should also value the feeling that, deep down, you really want to settle down with one particular person.
With that in mind, I think it’s perfectly fine to date multiple people and have affairs—go ahead and do it. As you meet more and more people, eventually someone will come along who is number one by far, both sexually and personality-wise—or maybe not just number one, but your one and only!?
When that happens, you can finally narrow it down to that one person. I don’t think you need to force yourself to choose someone who has parts that just don’t feel right.
That said, it may be a very long journey. I made more than 50 offers before meeting that one person…
I think it’s best to enjoy meeting different people one after another and having new experiences, while waiting for that special someone to eventually appear.
For what it’s worth, I’m currently seeing just one person who is a perfect match for me, both sexually and personality-wise.
Enjoy your life!!
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Different respondents have different perspectives, and I actually found the answers more interesting to read than the question itself.
My opinion is that the self-loathing and guilt the questioner feels serve no useful purpose. Why? Because once you start feeling disgusted with yourself, you’re likely to stop thinking altogether. You stop trying to consider what lies beyond that feeling.
Generally speaking, people might say that now that you have a boyfriend, it’s time to settle down. But you have your own life, and isn’t it more important to figure out how to come to terms with the part of yourself that feels this way?
That said, this may sound contradictory, but rather than overthinking it, how about sometimes making fun of yourself with a little humor—and getting involved with your boyfriend or other guys, whether giving or receiving?
I don’t really have an opinion on marriage, but this may be none of my business: perhaps you should at least give some thought, even vaguely, to whether you want to have children. Having children in your thirties is perfectly normal nowadays, but quite a few women around me have struggled with that decision and, in some cases, ended up regretting it.
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Even when you turn 50, you can stay exactly as you are. Keep plenty of papas and boyfriends around. Marriage is nothing but trouble. Staying single is just fine.
From a divorcee.
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I think of myself as being divided into two parts: the part that wants to do something, and the part that makes it happen. The former is my true essence and should be allowed to do as it pleases; as long as I’m alive, it is 100% right, no matter what. The latter is a matter of skill. It should keep working to remain the former’s knight, and I get frustrated when it falls short. I don’t hate it, but I do think, “Get it together,” and even when it can’t, I think it should at least take the risk. That’s the kind of entity it is. Physiologically speaking, the former is the brainstem, and the latter is the cerebral neocortex.
“Finding someone better” is something most people involved in this activity think about, isn’t it? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Have you heard the term “ambition”? Whether someone clings to the hope that such a person will eventually appear, or accepts that this is simply how the world works and treats members of the opposite sex as disposable, is up to them. The latter approach is macho in its own way, and I don’t think that’s necessarily bad either.
To begin with, do you really have to keep seeing someone for a long time? Even if it means forcing yourself? Of course, it’s great if you find someone you can continue seeing without having to endure anything, but I don’t see why it has to be otherwise.
If you want to continue with someone in particular, you have to hold yourself back, accommodate their desires, and keep attracting them in your own way. If, along the way, you discover their good qualities or find the right balance for making things work, then you’re in luck. Still, I feel like eventually you’ll get tired of accommodating them and end things more often than not. Well, that’s just returning to where you started, so I think it’s fine. After going full circle, you’ve probably leveled up.
Taro
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If you want to build and deepen a relationship with someone in the way you hope, you need to let go of selfish desires and approach them with the mindset that you’ll be okay even if things don’t turn out as you wish.
If you can do that, the other person will sense it too, and things will ultimately develop as you hope—not only in relationships between men and women.
Whether it’s dating or an adult relationship (intimate), it’s about making the other person happy. Even in papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), you should want to be useful to them in ways that go beyond the arrangement.
Unless you make each other happy, support one another, and deepen the relationship, the other person will never come to think, “I can’t live without you” or “You’re my life partner.”
You need to take another look at your own approach and change the mindset of constantly looking for someone better who might be out there—a self-centered, self-serving way of thinking. Otherwise, the situation where the other person feels the same way about you will never change.
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