The male respondents all seem way too rich, so it’s hard to relate to them. Shouldn’t there be at least one more down-to-earth male respondent? I’m a woman in my 20s with a Standard or Gold membership. I can’t believe allowances of 50,000 yen. I’ve never received that much!

I’m Mamiya from Universe Tokyo, and I’ll answer this. Back when I was selecting male members earning over ¥40 million a year at THESALON, lowering the threshold to ¥30 million made the number increase dramatically. Those earning ¥20 million or less seemed to be about twice as numerous, so I suppose every group has a pyramid structure. There may be some way to segment the men who can afford to give an allowance of 5, but women don’t necessarily receive 5 simply because they’re Platinum. I’m sure there are Standard women who receive 5 as well. Isn’t that what makes it interesting? Because Level 3 is the ordinary, mainstream tier, it naturally has the most people—and the most complaints. I don’t think people who can give 5, at a level the average person can’t comprehend, are necessarily the only ones who can become respondents.

I’m Fuu, a column writer. I’m a GOLD member, but just an ordinary person— a regular salaryman papa. If you’re a woman and genuinely feel that your allowance is too low, I think you should try putting in more effort to match what your partner is looking for. I’m just an ordinary guy, so I negotiate my allowance pretty desperately. For the girls I’m currently seeing, I pay 3 or 4, depending on the person. There’s one girl I give 5 or more to. The quality is completely different. It’s everything: intimacy, her glowing skin, her figure, the way she treats me, and how considerate she is. She takes care of herself and works on the things she can improve. And she really pays attention to me. I don’t want to lose her and want to continue seeing her, so even though it’s tough on my budget, I negotiated with her. Somehow, we’ve managed to keep things going. For example, if your behavior—especially the intimacy—is really good and you make the man feel that he doesn’t want to lose you and wants to keep seeing you (and be intimate again), he’ll make the effort and pay more. It’s not just about your face, either. Of course, being attractive helps, but there are plenty of other qualities you can develop and polish that will make you shine—and be popular with older men. Take a good, honest look at your own behavior and attitude. Since you’re doing papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), I hope you can be savvy, make your papa really happy, and eventually receive a higher allowance.

I’m BB7, a male member. I’m basically a bottom-tier male member. Stories about wealthy men like Saito and Mac might as well be fairy tales to me—they have nothing to do with reality. I’ve never given anyone a gift, and no one has ever asked me for one either. I assume they think, “He doesn’t have any money, so there’s no point asking him for anything.” I don’t go to family restaurants for meals, but at most, I spend around ¥10,000 for the two of us. For birthdays, I’ll treat her to a slightly nicer meal, and that’s about it. My allowance is usually ¥30,000–¥50,000. There was one time a woman told me she needed at least ¥100,000, but I said that was impossible and negotiated it down. I’ve had a monthly arrangement at ¥30,000, and I’ve also been dropped for being too cheap. There have even been times when they stopped responding altogether. I don’t know whether I’m getting angry feedback or not, but apparently I’m the enemy of the female respondents here—a shitty respondent, basically (lol).

Maezawa from the President’s Office here as well. > What do you think about recommending male members who receive lots of feedback like, “The allowance was only 30,000 yen—seriously?!” as answerers? To begin with, are there actually people who became answerers because they were recommended? Basically, people who want to become answerers apply themselves and are then selected. So if you mean, “Even if a male member who has received lots of feedback like ‘The allowance was only 30,000 yen—seriously?!’ applies, don’t reject him and let him become an answerer,” then I understand your point. That said, even if someone has received lots of feedback saying, “The allowance was only 30,000 yen—seriously?!,” the club basically doesn’t get involved in allowances, so they can still become an answerer now. On the other hand, if the feedback says, “I didn’t receive any allowance,” then regardless of the club’s noninvolvement, refusing to provide an allowance means the person misunderstands how dating clubs work—in other words, they’re not suitable for the club. That absolutely counts as a complaint. The same goes for people who don’t pay transportation costs. Most of the time they make excuses like, “I forgot,” so those cases aren’t counted. But if it happens twice or more, people start thinking, “Was it intentional?” or “They couldn’t even do the simple thing we asked and pay it upfront,” so I think those cases would count as complaints. > I feel like both men and women would be happier if there were more women who understood reality. That may be true, but would you really want to join a club like that? (Men would probably appreciate it, but wouldn’t the women who’d be happy with that be women looking to volunteer?) If that’s the kind of club you want, you can simply join a dating app. That sort of thing is completely normal there. For example, someone finishes at a hotel, says, “I forgot my wallet, so I’m going to withdraw some money,” and runs off—meaning no allowance. Or someone hands over 5,000 yen afterward and says, “Here’s the agreed-upon 5.” Or says, “You want 30,000 yen? What are you talking about? 15,000 is the standard.” That kind of thing is commonplace in the dating-app world. So if you prefer a world with that kind of reality—the kind men enjoy—you can join one of those apps. You won’t have to feel frustrated, and you can become the kind of woman men like.

I’m Saito, a column writer♪ Actually, it seems there are quite a lot of men like that. At first, I was surprised to find that some men were approaching even women marked as “blacklisted” with offers of 30,000 yen, taking advantage of the confusion. (I also know a woman who accepted one simply because she wasn’t getting any offers.) Every time I had dinner with women, the subject would come up, and some of them even said: “Universe only has broke men.” That’s why I decided to become a column writer—to show that not all men are like that. (At least, there aren’t any men offering less than 80,000 yen among the ones I know.) And then… well, yeah. My column about a dinner event caused an uproar. After seeing the backlash, I realized that dinner events costing around 2 million yen don’t attract complaints, but once the amount reaches several million yen, people suddenly lose it. lol

I’m Paper Airplane, a male member who can’t bring himself to buy spinach when it costs ¥248. I hesitate to buy milk at ¥198, too… If it’s ¥178—or at least ¥188—I’ll buy it. Am I turning into a commoner…? Also, I agree that ¥30,000 is a bit iffy. But if my long-term girlfriend gave me an allowance of ¥30,000, I’d be absolutely delighted… probably! Outside of papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), ¥30,000 is a significant amount of money. And ¥50,000 is on a completely different level. If you think about it normally… Even ¥2,000 or ¥3,000 can be incredibly valuable and bring a lot of joy. In general, being able to turn the value of those few thousand yen into happiness is an important factor. Still, since this is a dating club, both men and women need to be able to dream a little. At the moment, I give everyone the same allowance regardless of their class, but it’s not especially generous—in fact, it’s on the lower side. It’s important for both women and men to act in a way that fulfills their own desires and brings them what they’re looking for. I hope good fortune comes your way, so that you can get what you want, too.

I’m Rin, a female member. “You’ve never received anything? No, no, no!” That’s what you’re saying??? How embarrassing. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes youth is your only asset—and it can still be worth an amount you could never earn on your own. Can you really earn that much yourself? You’re taking it far too much for granted that you should receive money earned by male members. Don’t you feel any gratitude? In the end, it all comes down to knowing when you have enough. By the way, there are men who offer ¥30,000 per meeting. I turned down someone offering ¥50,000 and have continued seeing the one offering ¥30,000. I’d like to become the kind of person who makes someone want to date her so much that they’d pay ¥100,000 or ¥200,000, no matter who she is.

I’m Flagmaker, the column writer. That’s right. I’m the down-to-earth male respondent. When you say “5” or “3,” you mean pay-per-meeting, right? Back in the day, I was a Jedi too, sticking to pay-per-meeting 5. But these days, I’ve fallen straight to the dark side. My current activities probably go far beyond anything you can imagine. Officially, I still disguise myself as a Jedi and work as a columnist and respondent. You could say I’m basically a member of the Jedi Council. There’s also the role of selling dreams and guiding those who come after me. And I couldn’t let anyone find out that I’m actually a Dark Lord, so I’ve kept it hidden all this time… The woman I’m currently seeing gets 5 on a monthly arrangement. Let me say that again: 5 on a monthly arrangement, lol. Depending on my financial situation, it could even be 3 on a monthly arrangement, lol. Of course, I control her with the dark force so she doesn’t become dissatisfied. I’m no longer an ideal supporter, nor am I a down-to-earth one. I’m a dark-side member, lol. “Three on a monthly arrangement.” Could you survive such hell? *Sorry if the Star Wars references made this hard to follow. But monthly 3–5 is the truth. Oh, and it’s 10 in bonus months. Sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it? lol In return, I’m considerate in various ways and let her do as she pleases. The number of times we meet also varies from month to month. That said, I originally followed proper etiquette when it came to the allowance, and we’re also a good match, so I may be a little different from the kind of down-to-earth member the questioner has in mind. I just got tired of doing things normally, according to papa-katsu etiquette and the going rates. Maybe it would be good to have a realistic, down-to-earth male respondent among the members here. Because after this answer, I’ll be returning to the Jedi side publicly, lol. > Mack This is a miraculous encounter that came about through a year of experience and effort. I’m usually humble, but every now and then, my urge to brag leaks out. ^^; That kind of thing is probably why people dislike me, lol.

I’m Kazu, a male member who always offers an allowance of 5. It’s true that when you ask Gold women what they’re hoping for, they sometimes say, “If possible, I’d like 5,” with that “if possible” attached. But if they say “if possible,” doesn’t that mean it’s within a realistic range for them too? Questioner, I’ll make you an offer, so flatter me with that same kind of enthusiasm and make me feel good. Being excessively praised feels creepy, but when someone reacts with natural surprise like you did, it makes me feel great. It’s like the thrill of having someone see me in bed and naturally blurt out, “Wow, that’s big.” Sorry for the long preamble. First of all, I don’t think the respondents are recommended or anything. They’re probably just eccentric people who apply to be respondents of their own accord, knowing there’s no compensation. At least, that’s what I do. So perhaps the people struggling along on an allowance of 3 simply haven’t applied to become respondents. Since you’re representing the common people, why don’t you apply to be a respondent yourself? P.S. When someone asks for 6 or more, I usually turn them down. I don’t think allowances are something to haggle over. Just keep in mind that making overly demanding requests about the terms may also lead the man to turn you down. A serious answer to Megumi: “I only received an allowance of 3 (angry)” probably wouldn’t be treated as a complaint by the club. Saying, “The transportation money for my first date was only 3,000 yen,” would probably count as a complaint, though.