Are the following behaviors unique to papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan)?
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・Texting “Thanks for today” after saying goodbye
・Seeing someone off at the station until they’re out of sight
・A date that goes dinner → hotel → saying goodbye
Are these things not very common in ordinary romantic relationships?
One more thing, while I’m at it:
What is the purpose of a normal romantic relationship between a young man and woman?
Is it to look for someone to marry?
My sense of things is starting to get distorted, and I’m no longer sure what a normal romantic relationship even is.
I’m Nana Ayase, a female member.
You use thank-you messages at work too, don’t you?
After being treated to a business dinner, you always send a quick thank-you, right?
Gratitude is something that naturally comes with life.
Seeing someone off is also common at work and elsewhere.
When young people fall in love, they don’t decide to pursue romance and then make themselves fall in love. I think it’s more about feelings like, “They’re wonderful,” “I want to touch them,” or “I want to cherish them.” I don’t think marriage is necessarily related, but have people stopped falling in love with others?
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I’m Taro, a male member.
Romance may ultimately be about finding someone to marry, but in most cases, people date without thinking that far ahead. Especially for younger people, “marriage” probably doesn’t feel very real. I think everyone has that moment before proposing where they think, “Wait, am I really about to do this?”
Dating patterns are probably pretty casual too. People tend to fall into routines, but they change things when they get bored and don’t necessarily feel the need to stick to a pattern. The behavior you described isn’t exclusive to papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), but if that’s all you ever do, it does start to feel like a “papa-katsu package.”
I can relate to the part about your sense of things starting to feel distorted. The allowance lowers the bar in some ways, while there are also plenty of hidden circumstances. You can feel like you’ve solved everything by being suspicious and taking precautions, but after a while, you sometimes start to lose track of what’s actually true.
In the movie *Inception*, the main character spins a top, right? I think it’s good to have something like that. I have one myself. I’d never tell anyone else what it is, though.
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Maezawa from the CEO’s office here—I’ll answer too.
Even ordinary romantic relationships have changed with the times.
There used to be an era when people believed you shouldn’t have sex until marriage, and that women were supposed to remain virgins.
These days, hardly anyone says that anymore.
If anything, we live in a time when people say it’s more important to make sure you’re sexually compatible before getting married.
Rather than worrying about what’s considered normal, I think what matters more is whether you’re comfortable with it, whether the other person is comfortable with it, and whether neither of you feels burdened.
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I’m Aya, a female member.
Even with a regular boyfriend, I’ll do things like:
- Texting “Thanks for today” after we part ways
- Seeing him off at the station until he’s out of sight
- Going on dates that involve dinner, then a hotel, then heading home
But since someone my own age feels more like an equal than a papa, I don’t feel as much need to be considerate. Over time, I may stop seeing him off until he’s out of sight, or we might not always go from dinner to a hotel—sometimes we may not be intimate at all.
Every couple has their own version of “normal,” so I don’t think you need to worry about it that much.
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I’m date◎yume, a male member.
Relationships through a dating club and ordinary romantic relationships aren’t all that different at their core.
I think it’s usually just dinner → a hotel → parting ways, with other things—like a movie, shopping, a walk, or a drive—worked in before, after, or in between.
The purpose of romance between young men and women? As a man, I want to win over an attractive woman.
Modern society tends to avoid expressing our instincts directly, choosing more euphemistic wording instead, but I think that’s essentially what it comes down to.
Of course, sex is part of it, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it.
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I’m Flagmaker, a columnist.
I got married at 23, so I haven’t had a normal romantic relationship with anyone other than my wife. But the women I met privately and ended up in that kind of relationship with were kinder than the women I met through dating clubs… Sadly, that’s just how it was. ^^;
In my experience, those women were more likely to send a “thank you” message, see me off, and go on dates centered around love hotels. Though, of course, that’s all in the past.
As for romance between young men and women, it was so long ago that I don’t really understand it anymore either.
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I’m Kazu, a male member.
Exchanging LINE contact information and seeing someone off are things people do even on ordinary dates.
As for dinner followed by a hotel, I think that’s simply the usual flow for a first date at Universe. It might be the same for a first papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan) date, too. In my case, even at Universe, after a few dates the pattern sometimes becomes hotel → dinner → hotel.
When young men and women date with the intention of pursuing a normal relationship, I can’t speak for women, but for men, isn’t sex usually the goal? In my case, I haven’t wanted to get married since I was young.
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