I’m Rin, a female member.
If you don’t have the willingness or capacity to protect your brand—or to accept everything that comes with it—then perhaps you should just walk away.
That said, I tend to agree with Maezawa-san’s opinion: if you’re only going to offer a half-hearted helping hand, then don’t do it in the first place. You’re no different from that parent: an apology followed by unpaid service.
If someone clings to a hand that only appeared to be reaching out, and then it lets go… that may have been the final blow. They might have found the strength to stand on their own and move forward, or they might have disappeared after losing to despair.
But I don’t think it’s something for those of us who have already moved on to dwell on sentimentally.
A win-win dating club. Even with girls who casually write and say things like, “There are people who can get money just by pretending to be pitiful,” there are men who receive something resembling affection, including pleasure, through the allowance.
Isn’t that enough?
When the temperature drops, people long for companionship and want to draw close to one another. But ultimately, everyone puts themselves first.
I don’t think this is a world where you can bring in ideas of what’s right or wrong.
I’m だて◎ゆめ, a male member.
I’ve been a little busy lately, so I’ll add more tonight.
P.S.
Work is especially busy in the fall and spring, and I’m completely swamped. People around me tell me that now that I’m past sixty, I should take things a little easier, but I have dates to pay for too, so I have to keep pushing myself… (笑)
Like Mac, I work in a technical field, but since it’s a battle against time and physical stamina, I’m more of an athletic type, so to speak. Incidentally, I was on the baseball team in high school and aimed to make it to Koshien, but we lost in the first round. (笑)
Anyway,
> I felt she was more than I could handle, so I ended things by leaving her messages unread.
It’s been a year since then.
Every so often, I start to message her on LINE, thinking, “I wonder how she’s doing,” but then I change my mind and delete it. I actually did the same thing today. (笑)
The photo she uses for her LINE icon is still the scenery from the flower field we visited together.
I do feel sorry for her, but to save that girl, I would have to be prepared to stay by her side for ten years—the same length of time she was abused by her biological father—or even longer. I don’t have that kind of capacity.
How am I supposed to deal with this painful, clawing feeling?
Deep down, I wonder whether Mac might really have been better off continuing his relationship with that girl a little longer.
That’s probably why he still thinks about her even after a whole year.
Actually, when I was younger, I was quite popular with women too (笑), so back then I ended several relationships rather one-sidedly, without thinking much about the women’s feelings.
That was the kind of person I was, but even after a year—or several years—I still sometimes think about those women. Honestly, that’s what gradually made me decide not to end relationships that way anymore.
So, what I’m working on now is this:
Whenever someone relies on me—man or woman—I try to face that person sincerely and think about what I can do for them, then put it into practice.
That’s because I believe the person I am today is the result of everything I learned from the people I’ve crossed paths with—their ways of thinking and doing things. Those lessons are a personal asset to me.
In reality, I ended up becoming a dating guy. (笑)
Of course, there are also plenty of people whose way of thinking is completely different from mine—probably about half the world. All I can say to them is, “I’m sorry!” (笑)
Lately, I’ve come to accept that this is simply how the world works. Don’t overthink it!
People talk about having strong or weak mental health, but from my perspective, it’s really just a lack of firm convictions and self-confidence.
That’s why their feelings fluctuate, they become confused about what to do, and they end up getting more and more depressed or increasingly hysterical, I think.
In this situation, I would decide how far I could get involved within the limits of my abilities, and then face it head-on. (笑)
I’d send her a LINE message.
I’d support her until she got her driver’s license.
I approach things exactly the same way in my activities through the dating club.
If someone says, “I want to sleep with you,” and then, after getting out of the bath and putting her underwear back on, tells me, “This is the kind of relationship I want,” I’m sorry, but I would say, “I can’t continue seeing you under these circumstances.”
On the other hand, if she says, “I’m okay with dating you,” I say, “Let’s stay together until you get tired of me.”
That’s just how I do things. (笑)
I’m Flag Maker, a column writer.
Since my wife has some emotionally unstable tendencies, I’d probably end things, even though I’d feel bad, thinking, “I can’t handle taking care of both of them.” Getting involved halfway can sometimes make things worse.
There’s something called “reenactment.” Children who were abused by their parents may unconsciously repeat the same behavior in an attempt to understand the feelings of the parent who abused them, because they want to know what their parent felt or even want to love them. Apparently, they may come to think, “Is this how my parent felt?” or “Do you regret it afterward, even when you hurt your child?”
The only solution I can think of is to continue supporting them by their side for longer than the period they were influenced by their parents.
My wife was pretty difficult when we were dating and during the early years of our marriage, but we’ve been married for almost 15 years now, and she’s improved quite a bit.
It feels like I’m raising a child all over again from the beginning.
> Mack
I added the results of a tarot reading to my previous question, so please take a look if it helps. Sorry if it’s completely off, haha.
https://universe-club.jp/help/questions/view/4649
I’m Maezawa from the CEO’s Office, and I’ll answer too.
Thank you for your question.
> I’d also like to hear what others think could have been handled differently.
There probably isn’t one right answer, but if Mac left her message unread because he was worried it would affect his own mental health, then from a preventative standpoint, I think it was the right choice.
That said, as someone with more life experience, I also feel he might have spent a little more time with her.
She trusted Mac and confided something she didn’t tell anyone else. If she believed Mac would accept her, then being rejected even by Mac must have come as a major shock.
She doesn’t like intimacy, but she still engages in it because she feels it’s the only way she can stay with someone who treats her kindly.
I think she’s a woman who truly wants to meet someone who will stay with her without intimacy, but doesn’t know how to make that happen. She believes she has to be intimate in order to be accepted.
So perhaps she thought Mac might be kind to her, and opened up about her true feelings. But when it seemed like he was rejecting her, she desperately tried to keep him from ending the relationship, saying things like, “I’ll do anything,” and then actually putting that into practice.
But Mac was different from usual, which only made her feel more emotionally empty. She wanted to return to the relationship she’d had with him before, but that wish wasn’t fulfilled.
That’s how I see the situation.
Every relationship is different, and it’s not really something outsiders should comment on.
Still, I think it would be okay to send a simple message like, “How have you been?”
Women tend to move on quickly, so she might just tell him honestly how things are now, leave him on read, or say she wants to meet again.
Even just knowing what happened afterward might be worthwhile.
That said, in Mac’s case, since he says, “I’m a brand” (laughs), there is a risk that she could become a stalker or do something to him later, so perhaps it would be better not to do anything.
But if she were an ordinary person, I feel he could probably reach out a little more without causing problems.
