I always find this site helpful.

If you don’t understand something, I don’t think you need to force yourself to. There are times when I don’t understand women’s thinking either, but I’ve learned to just accept that that’s how things are. Something like this happened recently. I suggested two possible dates, and we settled on date A. Afterward, she asked, “Would it be okay to change it to date B after all?” She’s a popular woman who used to be on a black-list app, so I got the feeling that perhaps a more generous papa (male supporter) had invited her later. But I just accept that these things happen.

In my case, it’s either ② or ③. ① If I’m keeping a girl I’m not that interested in on the back burner, I’ll say I’ll contact her again without setting a date. ② When I’m busy and don’t have much availability, if I make plans with someone I like better, I’ll do pretty much what you described. ③ When I’m extremely busy and exhausted, there are times when even meeting someone feels like a hassle, despite having the time.

It’s probably either ① or ②... If they didn’t want to keep the promise, they shouldn’t have made it in the first place... Some people do say whatever sounds good at the time. ③ is possible too, but I think it’s less likely. I don’t think someone would suddenly find it too much trouble without some other factor involved.

I’ll meet someone if we’ve already set a date, but there have been moments when I thought, “Maybe I should stop seeing her,” so I’ll share what made me feel that way. One was when I started feeling uncomfortable with our interactions after we parted ways. We may have agreed on the terms and hit it off during the conversation, but if her messages on LINE and elsewhere were overly curt or businesslike—or, on the other hand, if she started bringing up very heavy personal problems even though we’d only met a few times, or asked for expensive gifts—I sometimes thought, “We’ve already set our next date, but maybe I shouldn’t meet her after all.” It was that kind of discomfort with our 【later interactions】 that made me reconsider. The other was when I became really interested in someone else. I’ve had moments when I thought, “We’ve already arranged a date, but I’ve met someone even better, so if I’m going to give an allowance anyway, I’d rather give it to her.” I suppose this could also be a case of 【a rival appearing】.

Could it be because of their LINE profile picture or username? Sometimes I look at someone’s LINE icon and think, “Hmm, something feels off. This person seems like they’d be a hassle,” and then I lose interest in meeting them. Cases like this do happen occasionally.

If we’ve gone as far as setting a date, I always meet, so I’ve never done that. Since most people are the same way, it’s never happened to me either. As for the reason, if that was what happened, their motivation must have dropped after making the plans. As Taro pointed out, I suppose there wasn’t enough communication to keep things going in the meantime.

I’d say what Taro wrote is pretty much right. Once you’ve made a commitment, you should follow through and go.

Yes, this is speculation—in other words, I’m writing from the perspective of what the situation would look like if I were the one doing it. The fact that the conversation was lively that day probably left a good impression. Did you bring up deciding when to meet again? If it came from the man, or happened naturally in the flow of your conversation, then I’d say things were going pretty well at that point. Incidentally, I think the terms of the arrangement only serve as a negative check. In other words, if the terms don’t work, that’s a negative—but just because they do work doesn’t automatically make someone a good match. As I also said in my answer to yesterday’s question, the first three meetings or so are a screening period, with only about a 10% survival rate. You have to keep going until the outcome is decided. In this case, I think either possibility 2 or 3 occurred. If you want to see someone again, you can’t just leave them hanging. You need to stay in touch at least once every two or three days. Judging from your question, it sounds like you may have left things untouched until the day of the next meeting. If so, I think that was the reason things fell apart. Of course, when you meet in person, conversation naturally picks up if you click. But even if there are things that bother us a little, we may still go along with it when the other person is making an effort to meet us halfway. Then, after parting and thinking more calmly, we may decide that meeting again feels questionable. That can happen with a new offer, though not necessarily. More often, I think we compare the person with our existing portfolio—the women we’re already seeing. Women may think that’s awful, but since men are also paying an allowance, there’s an aspect where we have to look at things realistically. When I feel that way, I try not to expand the conversation too much in our LINE exchanges after meeting. If contact naturally dies down a little, then even if she messages me again, I let it fade with an unread ignore. Rather than suddenly shutting someone out, I think it feels more understandable to the woman if there are at least some signs that things are winding down. If I don’t think we’re a good match, I cut things off. But if I had a good time meeting her or she was simply polite and pleasant, I still want to respond to that in some way. I see it as a personal thank-you. Of course, every man has his own way of thinking, and if he doesn’t have much experience with this sort of thing, there will probably be various shortcomings and missteps no matter how sincere he tries to be. So I hope you won’t blame this man over what happened or become distrustful of men in general. As I mentioned earlier, if you think someone is a good person, you should make an effort to keep the connection going. You don’t want to be too persistent and annoy them, but for example, if you’ve agreed to meet a week later, there’s nothing strange about exchanging a few messages around the third day. You should seriously think about how to make those LINE messages feel natural while still leaving an impression. Also, by the second meeting, the meeting place should normally be decided by the day before the day before. If he hasn’t contacted you, you should send something like, “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow ❤️” and test the waters. You need to think properly about this kind of behind-the-scenes strategy. During the screening period, nothing is really settled. It’s quite common to think someone is only a so-so match, but then the woman comes on strongly, you keep the connection going almost by default, and before you know it, it turns into a long-term relationship. Isn’t it more important to get the result you want than to know exactly what the truth was? Oh—but when you said you have “a fairly long history with papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan),” were you actually bragging, Dewi Sukarno-style, that you’ve been happily catching generous (well-paying) papas without needing to make these small, ordinary efforts? If that’s what you meant, then I sincerely apologize. I fear I’ve gone on about the petty little tactics of us commoners. Please feel free to laugh. Taro