I’ve been chatting on LINE with someone I met through another dating club. We were supposed to meet today, but I noticed he had withdrawn from the club. We can still contact each other, and we’re meeting in a hotel lobby, but I’m starting to feel uneasy. Should I just not meet him?

Everything in life is an experience. It sounds interesting, so why not go? Let us know how it goes tomorrow or something. At least Taro and I will be looking forward to hearing about it. If he quit the club without even meeting you, right after arranging a date with you, then frankly, he must have joined just to find you. In that case, he might be someone you know in real life—possibly even a stalker-type guy. That’s scary. Or maybe he’s an extremely passionate man who says, “I fell in love at first sight when I saw your photo. That’s why I left the club. I want to be with you and devote everything I have to you. In fact, why don’t we get married right now?” Maybe he’ll propose. Anyway, no one knows how things will turn out. You can’t know what’s inside a box until you open it. Wasn’t there a song with lyrics like, “The contents of the box are dangerous”? Although, come to think of it, maybe his membership simply expired and he left the club normally—after making one last offer to you.

I think that’s something you need to decide for yourself. Life is a process of thinking for yourself, making your own choices, accepting the consequences as your responsibility, and learning from them. Minors are considered to lack the judgment needed to make such decisions and therefore don’t have contractual capacity. Once someone becomes an adult, they’re treated as having that judgment. By the way, a first meeting arranged for after 8 p.m. is pretty unusual. Since you’re asking this now, are you meeting after 9 p.m.? The lobby is probably fairly empty too.