Our relationship became strained after I started a business with my papa (a male supporter).
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I’ve been working as a solo underground idol for the past six months. I’m not signed with an agency, and a man I met here has been serving as my manager. We’ve been close and involved for over four years.
(He stopped giving me an allowance after the third year. We do have an intimate relationship, but when we travel to Tokyo together, he covers transportation and travel expenses and also handles a lot of difficult tasks, such as managing my activities.)
We really were as close as a couple, but ever since we started working together, I’ve noticed him getting irritated when I’m slow to calculate money or take a long time packing my things.
He normally starts businesses for a living, and he’s said himself that he becomes strict when he switches into work mode.
He does a lot of work for me purely as a hobby, without earning anything—in fact, he’s operating at a loss—so I’m truly grateful. But once he goes into work mode, all his kindness disappears and his attitude changes completely.
The other day, I asked, “Would it be okay if I put the photos in this way?” and ended up upsetting him. He said, “Some people get annoyed when you make unnecessary comments about how things should be done, so you’d better be careful with your attitude from now on.”
I understand that it’s fine to switch between work and personal time, but he sometimes even raises his voice at me, so I’m starting to worry about whether we can continue like this for much longer.
Our intimate relationship has continued since we started working together, but we’re no longer affectionate like a couple, and our LINE messages are now exclusively about work.
Is it difficult to get back to the way we were before?
I know it’s a negative way of thinking, but I’ve started wondering whether he now sees me only as a woman who will be intimate with him for free. Is it my fault for not being good at my job?
If you have any advice on how to restore our relationship, I’d really appreciate it.
It’s so common for a relationship to turn hostile after starting a business together that I honestly want to ask, “How did you not see that coming?”
It’ll be difficult to go back to how things were. He probably likes you as an underground idol, so even if you end the business relationship and quit being an idol, it still seems unlikely that you’ll be able to return to a romantic relationship.
If the subject of breaking up comes up, I hope you won’t end up arguing over money.
Marika
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I’m NANA AYASE ☆
Starting a business with your papa (a male supporter) was the mistake.
Hmm… how can I put this so you’ll understand, questioner? Since you’re an idol, you’re probably around 18 or 19, right?
Even when running a company, things don’t work well when you surround yourself entirely with people close to you. That’s why, when I was working as a company president’s secretary and he made advances toward me, I turned him down. You might think, “You’re doing papa-katsu (compensated dating in Japan), so this shouldn’t be a big deal, right?” But it creates awkwardness with everyone else.
A company president needs to remain a company president, and a manager needs to remain a manager—they can’t also be your papa. Mixing your personal and professional lives makes things complicated. From what you’ve said, your papa seems to be getting extremely frustrated with you.
Please aim higher as an idol. Make it to the mainstream. Aim for TWICE or BLACKPINK. I wish I’d worked that hard back then, but there were only half-hearted idols around at the time.
Good luck. An idol’s time in the spotlight is short.
Since things are already complicated, your only options are to break up with your papa or quit being an idol. I think you should join another agency first, then quit.
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I’m in Seattle.
If he gets mad at you, why not talk back to him to some extent? He’s quite a bit older than you, right? The least he can do is treat you kindly.
You’re probably cute, so I think you should dump the old guy and switch to the best man among your fans. The old guy might start treating you better if he feels like he’s about to be dumped.
I was a papa (a male supporter) to an underground idol for about two years, but it doesn’t really pay as a job. I don’t think you need to take it seriously. If you want to sing, keep it as more of a hobby, and if you start disliking it, you should quit right away. Like being a voice actor, it’s a career where the odds of becoming mainstream are incredibly low, so I wouldn’t recommend choosing it as a profession.
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I’m Saito, a columnist♪
As for that papa, I think he’s serious.
Producing an idol can quietly cost quite a lot of money. You should probably be more aware of the fact that your papa is covering even those small expenses. Without that level of awareness and gratitude, you simply won’t make it in the entertainment industry.
With such a naïve attitude, I find myself siding with the papa.
It’s not as though you can just spend a night with a sponsor and expect everything to work out nicely. I know women who have been pressured into things as extreme as threesomes, foursomes, and worse.
I’m just offering this as one of many perspectives.
Love and work are completely separate. You need to be more practical and keep your work and romantic feelings separate.
P.S.
The fact that it’s all for free is a little concerning too…
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I’m Hikoki, a male member.
You can’t go back to how things were, but unless you became distant, lost interest, harshly criticized him, cut him off, or had a major fight, he may not have experienced any major change in his feelings yet.
As long as he’s still working so hard for you, I think he probably still has strong feelings for you.
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I’m Dai, a male member.
At first, it was a situation where a young woman was seeing an older man in exchange for an allowance—meaning she held the stronger position.
Then, he tried to promote her as a business partner, which reversed the power dynamic and put him in the stronger position.
That’s how I see it.
It would probably be difficult to go back to the romantic phase in between, when the relationship was more equal.
If you become successful enough to really sell well, maybe you could return to an equal relationship…
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I’m Kazu, a male member.
I don’t think the problem was that you couldn’t do the job—it was starting a business with your papa (a male supporter). You can’t turn back time, so there’s no going back.
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