Something happened when I went out to eat with a man for the first time.
This content is machine-translated.
On the way to pay, he handed me his wallet and told me to pay with it.
Even though it felt strange, I paid the ¥25,000 bill for the two of us at the kaiseki restaurant in cash.
His wallet was stuffed with bundles of bills, and in the end, I felt that the reason he had instructed me to pay in such an unnatural way was because he wanted me to see all that cash.
I was really disappointed to see him trying to prove that he had money in such a way. It's up to him if he wants to carry around a lot of cash, but I really didn't want him to go out of his way to show it to me.
Are there really women who would be impressed by something like this?
I’m BB7, a male member.
> I was really disappointed by the way he tried to show that he had money.
I don’t know what that man’s intentions were, but if he was simply trying to show off his wealth, I honestly think that’s pretty sad.
Even if that wasn’t his intention, he seems like the kind of man who can’t—or won’t—consider or imagine that the woman might feel uncomfortable or suspicious.
Personally, regardless of whether he was trying to flaunt his wealth, I find the act of suddenly handing his wallet to a woman he’s meeting for the first time and telling her to pay to be overly familiar, arrogant, and lacking in class.
That said, some women might not mind it—or might even get excited seeing a wallet stuffed with money—so I imagine it could go over well with that type of woman.
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It’s Joe.
When my family goes out to eat, my drunk father sometimes hands my mother his wallet to pay. I do that from time to time too. Sorry—it’s not exactly classy, so I’ll be more careful from now on.
What I find even more puzzling is when a woman hands me her wallet.
The other day, a woman who gets eight-figure allowances handed me her wallet and said, “Jo-chan, pay with this!” The bill was a little over ¥50,000, which felt rather iffy. But when I thought about it, the Dior wallet was one she’d pressured me into buying for her in Bali, and the money inside also seemed to be money I’d given her. So I politely declined.
Was that the right call? And what message is a woman trying to send when she hands a man her wallet in the first place?
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I’m Rin, a female member.
I feel like you may have misidentified what was offensive.
It probably wasn’t about showing off his money, but rather treating you like “his woman” by casually handing you his wallet and having you take care of the bill.
It doesn’t bother me, but I can see how it might rub some people the wrong way...
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I’m Marika, a female member.
Let’s say the woman earns 3 million yen a year, while the man she’s seeing has 300 million yen.
Setting the finer details aside, what if their sense of money differs by a factor of 100?
Even the person asking this question probably carries 20,000–30,000 yen in their wallet, right? If she’s a papa-katsu woman, maybe a little more?
Multiply that by 100, and it becomes 2–3 million yen.
People who prefer carrying cash sometimes have that much on them. Someone I used to see was like that. He even said he wished there were 1-million-yen bills.
To a woman who doesn’t do papa-katsu, even seeing a few 10,000-yen bills in your wallet might look like you’re showing off.
Of course, I doubt you would go out of your way to show it to people.
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I’m Maezawa from the CEO’s office, and I’ll answer this one too.
The answer may be more helpful than the question itself.
That man probably trusts you. And by “how much,” I mean he trusts you so much that he could hand you a wallet containing around a million yen—assuming that’s roughly how much was in it.
He must really like you that much. I can’t help wondering whether he was trying to make an impression, though.
But things ended up going in an unexpected direction, with everyone basically saying, “Don’t show off a wad of cash like that.”
He may not have intended to flaunt it, so I do feel a little sorry for him.
Still, it’s probably best not to make strange displays. Even if you don’t hand someone your wallet, they might see a thick wad of cash inside it and think you’re showing off.
Maybe it would be much more stylish to casually pull out a black card and pay instead of using cash?
Though, of course, shops have to pay credit card processing fees, so they may actually prefer cash.
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I’m Kazu, a male member.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard a man say something like that（笑）
Some people do settle the bill that way, but it doesn’t make them seem particularly refined. And besides, I’m not sure it’s something you should ask a woman you’re meeting for the first time to do.
That said, back when I was a foolish man in my twenties who had just started making money, I used to carry around about a million yen in my wallet all the time, feeling pretty full of myself. Looking back, it’s embarrassing.
Oh, and the reason I started carrying that much cash was that my credit card limit was low. Pretty lame, right?
Around that time, I once left my wallet on my desk at the office and was reprimanded by an older former business owner who was working as the manager of a restaurant I was involved with. He said, “The owner may leave his wallet on the desk without worrying because he trusts his employees. But anyone can have a moment of weakness. Not giving people an opportunity to succumb to temptation is also a form of kindness.”
I thought he had a point, and ever since then, I’ve never left my wallet unattended or handed it to someone else.
This also reminds me of when I was still feeling full of myself back then. I once handed my wallet to a geisha I knew in Kyoto and asked her to take care of the bill, and she scolded me for being uncouth. It made me realize once again that it’s probably better not to do that kind of thing.
Then again, there may be women who get excited by money.
> Mr. Mac,
> If you’ve worked in the restaurant business, you know about credit card processing fees, right? Three or five percent.
Yes, and I understand that since the restaurant industry has high gross profit margins, credit card fees aren’t particularly painful. Also, once a business accepts credit cards, any sensible businessperson would include those fees in their cost calculations.
Whether or not one should take the restaurant’s profits into consideration is a matter of personal opinion, so leaving that aside—
> Isn’t it more like, “Please don’t make her run errands for you like that”?(^^;
That may be the case. Even so, I think it’s more gentlemanly not to hand your wallet to a woman you’re meeting for the first time and have her pay the bill on your behalf.
There may indeed be some regional differences. Tea houses in Kyoto have traditionally operated on credit.
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I’m Meg, a female member.
Hehe, hehe, hehe.
I can’t stop laughing…
It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a funny question.
What a cute guy—you want to show off your “I’m the man” attitude over something like that?
Anyone who loves Yukichi Fukuzawa would probably get excited…
Maybe you should ask him for a lot, lol.
If it were me, though, I’d just look for someone else!
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I’m a columnist and a bit of a “flag-maker.”
A good way to test someone is to take the wallet they hand you and casually put it in your own bag, pretending to steal it.
A good-natured person will say, “Yeah, yeah, I gave you my wallet just like that. Wait, no I didn’t! Haha. Give it back, please ^^;”
Someone narrow-minded, unable to take a joke, or lacking composure will just get annoyed.
I think you can get a pretty good sense of their personality this way.
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I’m Paper Airplane, a male member.
What a cute guy.
I can somewhat understand how he feels, but from the club’s perspective, this is pretty strange. The fact that you felt dissatisfied means you were only shown the money and didn’t actually get to benefit from it, right…?
And being told, “Take as much allowance as you like”… if there’s no relationship between you, it’s hard to accept it. Besides, it’s someone else’s wallet…
I guess the only option would be to hand over the wad of cash and hope for the best… Though in my experience, if they didn’t return it that same day, I never got it back.
Ah, maybe the only way is to give her a wallet as a present and put the money inside… Otherwise, how could you hand it over?
> Mac
That’s something people normally do when they’re dating or have an intimate relationship.
But in the questioner’s case, it happened suddenly at a club.
> The mama-katsu-type women who come along with their male companions do it all the time.
> From a man’s perspective, it feels like having his secretary run errands.
Perhaps being treated that way made it even more unpleasant for you…
Also, once you show it to her—or let her hold it once—shouldn’t a man just give it to her and consider it gone for good?
What? I’d find it pretty creepy for a stranger to suddenly touch my wallet… Though if it were Satomi Ishihara, I’d happily say yes.
Ah, I’m just a regular guy who still can’t bring himself to buy spinach that costs ¥248. If I brought home expensive vegetables, my wife would beat me up… so maybe you shouldn’t take anything I say too seriously.
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Aizawa, sub-chief of Universe Club Tokyo, answering.
There may be another motive behind it. Maybe he’s trying to see whether you’re the kind of person who might steal money, or whether your attitude changes when you see money.
Of course, it’s also quite possible he’s simply showing off. But if he worked hard to get where he is and become successful, I think you could just take that as a harmless little quirk.
If I ever became rich myself, I’d love to wipe the sweat off my face with banknotes on a hot day like today.
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