I grew up with an overprotective parent, and as a result, I can no longer trust people easily. At home, my parents cared mostly about appearances while speaking badly about relatives behind their backs.
(Sorry for being so vague.)
Even when someone treats me kindly, I can’t get close to them because I start thinking they must be plotting something or trying to take something from me.
I do want to date, and I’d also like to have friends of the same gender, but I find myself constantly suspicious of people.
When I did papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) in the past, I feel like I didn’t struggle this much because I had money as a bargaining chip.
(Using money as a means made me feel more at ease.)
How can I get better at interacting with people, especially potential romantic partners?
Mizuse from Universe Club’s Osaka branch here.
They say that being suspicious is a sign of interest. I believe it’s important to question things when trying to understand someone. However, if you remain suspicious all the time, people around you will notice and start distancing themselves, so it may also be important to try accepting things first.
Spending time with positive-minded people may also help change the way you look at things.
I hope this is helpful.
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People often talk about becoming numb to the value of money as a side effect of papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), but something even more important—and more easily overlooked—is becoming numb to lying.
This is a seriously important and serious issue. People in the real world generally go about their daily lives without lying nearly as often as lies are thrown around in the papa-katsu scene.
Put another way, if you tell the kinds of lies you could casually tell in papa-katsu to your real-life boyfriend or friends, and they find out, you’ll lose their trust.
Why do you think the word “trust” exists in the first place? Because human beings lie, and there are people who can’t—or shouldn’t—be trusted. That’s why we have words like trust and confidence.
The questioner blames their parents, but more than their parents, it was papa-katsu that distorted their sense of things. Their parents may have shown one face in public and another at home, with a difference between what they really thought and what they said. That two-sidedness may well have made the questioner uncomfortable, but that’s simply what people are like.
Even if their parents put on a good face around others, they didn’t actually harm people by taking money from them through lies like in papa-katsu, or by saying the right things and then taking advantage of them. They were relatively harmless.
Trusting your boyfriend or friends is like making a ceasefire agreement: “Let’s stop telling each other those kinds of lies.” Because it’s exhausting.
It’s the same in business. Some people try to pull things that are almost scams, but trusting someone means having the feeling that this person won’t do that, that they aren’t acting out of one-sided selfishness. You don’t do business with someone you can’t trust.
So, as an answer to the question: It’s only natural to be suspicious of people. That’s simply the kind of creature a human being is.
Within that, choosing who you can trust and making a ceasefire agreement with them—that’s what it means to form relationships with a boyfriend or friends. The more relationships you have that feel like safe spaces, the easier life becomes. That’s why they’re called a form of wealth.
One more thing: Money lies quite a lot. Or rather, money is used to cover up people’s lies. Compensation for an affair is a perfect example. So when you make decisions based on money, you end up accepting relationships with people who lie, which narrows the safe spaces in your life. That’s what people mean when they say money can’t buy happiness.
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Thank you for your question. I’ll answer as well.
> When I did papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) in the past, I feel like I didn’t struggle this much because I had money as my trump card.
If you can meet people without any problems through papa-katsu, I think it might be a good idea to meet lots of people that way.
By doing so, you’ll gradually learn where you can place your trust and what’s probably a lie. Once you can distinguish between the two, even if some of your wariness remains, you should still be able to interact with people.
Being distrustful can also be necessary for protecting yourself, so in the end, I feel that what matters is finding the right balance.
And yet...
It’s because of my cowardice that I’ve managed to live this way...
A man like a tiger, thanks to his bravery, may end up dying young...
Being too strong can shorten your life just as much as being too weak...
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Until my twenties, I also struggled socially and wasn’t good at talking to people.
You don’t have to become close with lots of people. Just try getting to know one or two people you click with, whether they’re men or women.
Also, cut ties with toxic parents as soon as possible. Once you’re over 18, they’re essentially strangers.
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