Hello.

I’m Saito♪, a columnist. Sometimes I get recommendations in various forms, but in the past I was also introduced to some completely mismatched women. It made me feel like they weren’t considering chemistry at all… and that I was just wasting my introduction fees. These days, though, I often find myself thinking, “They really do introduce me to wonderful women.” It feels like they’re saying, “She’s not only attractive in her photos—she has an even better personality, and I really want you to meet her!” On the other hand, if I choose based on photos alone, I’m more likely to end up meeting someone who’s unexpectedly not a good match. (I guess I’m not very good at judging people.) Just last week, I met a woman introduced by the staff. It was our first meeting, and I could tell her hands were trembling. As we ate, I could feel her gradually relaxing, and by the end she even started saying that she wanted to stay the night… It made me realize that the first man a woman meets through a dating club may be pretty important.（笑）

I’m Mamiya, Senior Manager at EastCustomerLoyaltyGroup. I’m a little removed from the front lines these days, but I don’t recall saying, “I’d like to recommend you to our male members,” all that often. Was this through LINE after the interview? In the Tokyo area, staff used to split responsibilities, so those who were good at making recommendations often did so. However, I’ve often heard that branches outside the major metropolitan area proactively recommend women to individual members before posting their profiles on the members-only site. So this may have been one of those sales recommendations. There may not be any specific criteria, but if a recommendation gets no response, the emails can start to feel annoying. Perhaps women of a particularly high caliber are the ones who receive these recommendations. We also sometimes recommended men again when a member had asked us to let him know if we found anyone suitable, or when someone he had saved as a favorite—but never made an offer to—was about to leave the club. Also, when a woman feels uneasy about papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), we may reach out with the idea of first recommending someone reassuring and having her go on a date with him. Ideally, we’d think, “These two would be absolutely perfect for each other!” and recommend and arrange them for one another.

Maezawa from the Corporate Planning Office here. > What criteria determine whether staff contact a female member to say, “We’d like to recommend you to a male member”? As for contacting her, there are actually times when we recommend a woman to a man without contacting the woman first. If we recommend her but the man doesn’t make an offer, she may end up disappointed. So whether or not staff contact her beforehand probably varies from staff member to staff member. There doesn’t seem to be any particular standard. Separate from whether they contact her, the decision to recommend someone is often based on whether the staff member who interviewed her personally liked her. It’s only natural that if a staff member thinks a woman is great, they’ll want to recommend her to a man as well. > What criteria are used to choose the male members to whom women are recommended? If a man has previously said, “Please let me know if you find a woman like this,” and we feel that her terms match what he’s looking for, we’ll contact him. Otherwise, we choose men who haven’t received complaints from women in the past—especially gentlemanly men whom the staff feel are unlikely to make a woman uncomfortable. If we recommend a woman to someone other than a man the staff feel comfortable with and she ends up leaving, that would be a problem. There may have been differences between the Tokyo metropolitan area and regional areas in the past, but now we have a system where each branch is responsible for its male members, so I think it depends on the branch. As for whether staff can introduce a woman they haven’t personally interviewed, it may be a little questionable at first. But once the staff get used to the system, I think they’ll start making introductions as a matter of course.