If a woman says in her profile or at the first meeting, “I’d like to go shopping together,” does she mean she wants you to buy her a designer item or something in addition to the allowance?

Going shopping “Can I ask you to get me a Louis Vuitton key case—under ¥100,000—or maybe something from a cheaper brand?” And then, after looking at all sorts of things, the standard move is to end up buying a bag costing nearly ¥400,000. Adjust the amounts depending on the situation. The budget is four times higher. And of course, listing it on Yahoo! Auctions or Mercari afterward is also part of the standard routine. If you have multiple papa supporters, asking all of them for the exact same item—and then making a show of how much you treasure it—is an even more standard tactic. That’s the papa-katsu scene for you.

Putting aside what’s written in her profile, if she says that at the first meeting, it means she has no intention of seeing you again—or simply wouldn’t mind if she never did. Since she assumes you’ll never meet again, she probably wants to squeeze as much as possible out of you that day. If she were thinking about a second meeting, she’d put on a better act. Men often don’t think that far and mistakenly wonder, “Is she testing my generosity?” Being generous at the start to win someone over may work to some extent with a young man, but it’s pointless with a woman. It’s just a cultural difference between men and women, so don’t get the wrong idea. That said, there are occasionally men who enjoy buying women designer goods. I’m not sure what you’d call that particular preference. Though in those cases, it seems less like they’re buying what the woman wants and more like they’re buying what they themselves want her to have. Sometimes it isn’t designer clothing at all, but weird cosplay outfits or lingerie, so perhaps they want to dress her up like a doll in whatever look they like. A woman who writes “I want to go shopping together” in her profile has probably either encountered that kind of man before, or simply saw papa-katsu girls on social media bragging, “A present from my papa!” and felt envious.

If you think of shopping as going out, there are plenty of things you can enjoy together—having a meal, listening to each other’s complaints, giving advice, watching movies, visiting theme parks, going for drives, playing capsule-toy machines or claw games, picking strawberries, singing karaoke, going to bars, hunting bars, couple cafés, fishing, sightseeing, visiting the Expo, sampling food around town, skating, playing tennis, going to the beach, and so on. As long as you’re doing something you both enjoy, that should be fine. Of course, no woman is going to suggest shopping when you’ve just met for the first time… But if she’s someone who wants to continue seeing you, shopping usually isn’t that big a deal, and it may actually cost less than other dates. Even if you buy three or four items, such as clothes, shoes, or underwear, it often costs less than one shirt and pair of trousers for a man. There are many types of women’s stores and products, and they’re surprisingly cheap—so cheap you might wonder if they’re disposable. It’s far less expensive than a high-end restaurant, often not even half the price. If she’s happy just because you ask her opinion, help her choose something, or accompany her while she tries things on, sometimes I feel that can be better than going out for a meal. With the money you’d spend on a full-course dinner, you could buy several of most things… Going straight for designer brands would be excessive, but you can find plenty of nice things at GU if you look for items that suit her. You can also buy cosmetics at Don Quijote. There are lots of affordable stores around town where women can find things they want, and if you’re walking around, there are plenty of places that make you want to stop in. It’s not just dresses—even accompanying her while she tries on underwear, although a little embarrassing, can be enjoyable. The same goes for sampling food around town. Someone who enjoys wandering from place to place and finding delicious restaurants with their own eyes and taste buds can spend time exploring without considering it a waste. If they’re not interested in that, they won’t be able to enjoy it, and they may decide it’s quicker just to go to a restaurant already recommended by the Michelin Guide… In the end, it comes down to whether you can enjoy the activity and whether you’re interested in it. That’s the real standard. As for how I handle it, if it’s somewhere I could reasonably go with my family or daughter, and not too often, I’m happy to go along and enjoy it.

Why not start by going shopping together and see what she means by “going shopping”? If it turns out, as you suspected, that she wants you to buy her something, you could politely decline and simply make it a shopping date. That might be an option too. Of course, you probably won’t have another date after that. But since she asked you about it in the first place, I get the feeling that you don’t intend to buy anything on a first meeting, so I suppose that’s just how it is. That said, sometimes what she wants may be inexpensive. There are also women who won’t say anything unless the man himself offers to buy something for them. If she’s that type, there’s a good chance she may suit your preferences, so I think it’s fine to play it by ear. There are all kinds of women, so “going shopping” can mean different things to different people. She may also be watching to see how you respond. She might say something like: “I really want this…” “Maybe once we get to know each other better.” That might be the right approach in some cases. If it’s situation A, I don’t think you should go shopping with her. But if it’s B2, there may be various factors to consider.

You’re better off not meeting women who, from the start, expect you to cover unpleasant expenses on top of the allowance. Don’t get trapped by sunk costs and waste your time and money. At least after putting in a certain amount of effort, you found out that you weren’t a good match—that’s something. A woman who expects you to pay the allowance and then spend without limit while accompanying her shopping probably has a pretty skewed sense of balance when it comes to papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan). If you’d already met in person and hit it off, I could understand it to some extent. But she’s coming on pretty strong right from the start, lol.

I don’t make offers to women who list shopping as one of their requests. Unless we’ve been seeing each other for several years, I generally don’t want to give anything other than cash.

If I had money to burn, jumping straight into something like that might be fun, but normally I wouldn’t. It’s way too risky, lol. Besides, you don’t even know how the other person handles money, so you’d be left wondering how much they’re going to ask for. “I want to go shopping together” → “Wait, seriously!? Then you’ll buy something for me too, right?” That’s probably what I’d say.

> If a woman says in her profile or at the first meeting, “I’d like to go shopping together,” does that mean she wants you to buy her a designer item or something in addition to the allowance? “There’s no other way to interpret it than: ‘If you want to sleep with me, buy me something. And I want the allowance for an adult relationship separately, too.’” I can say for certain that there’s no hidden meaning beyond that. That said, there are also quite a few papas who like going shopping with their dates. I hear this from women often. It’s usually before their first adult relationship, and translated, it means: “I’ll buy you something, so you can sleep with me for free.”

If you think about it normally, she probably means she wants you to buy her something in addition to the allowance. As I mentioned in my previous answer about money-minded women, Fuu has had this experience: with a C-type woman, after dinner, she took me to the cosmetics section of a department store, saying she needed to do some shopping before going to the room, and had me buy her cosmetics. Since the adult relationship was being dangled as bait, I ended up buying them↓ They weren’t that expensive, and I figured it was fine since we became intimate, but she still came across as extremely money-minded, so I didn’t continue with her after that. Fuu only makes offers for C-type arrangements, so with another woman, after becoming intimate once, we arranged to meet again. She told me to meet her in the department store’s handbag section and asked me to buy her a bag as a memento of our meeting. I canceled the next date. In your case, it’s your first meeting, and it’s a B-type arrangement. As Mac-san also said, that’s risky. She’ll almost certainly use you as an ATM and you’ll get nothing in return. I think this is one to turn down.