I’m Saito, the columnist♪
As a member, I hesitate to say this, but similar dating clubs really do exist elsewhere.
(Some of you may already know about them.)
However, in practice, the rules became extremely unclear, and since information was freely shared among members, male members who didn’t ask for discounts started filing complaints. This led to a considerable number of problems with the system, and there have been cases where the club ultimately declined in quality.
As Maezawa-san said, I thought, “There must have been some reason behind their decision to quit.”
And I suppose it’s fair to assume that there may also be reasons that can’t be discussed publicly here.
→ I don’t really like saying this, but that dating club has become almost like a gathering place for women who don’t receive any offers. It has fallen so far that women even contact members asking them to make an offer, saying they’d be happy even if it were free.
Maezawa here.
Some of the male members may already know this, but I used to handle things that way.
That said, it was usually women who had just registered who asked me, so I would tell them, “Please give me a little time to see whether any offers come in.” If no offer came in afterward, I would acknowledge that I had misjudged her and arrange the meeting at the setting fee for a lower class, as you suggested.
There are probably other staff members who do the same thing, too.
However, in places like Tokyo, it may be harder to get the branch manager’s approval. There are more staff members, which can make individual arrangements difficult, and because there are so many women registered, they may be registering women based on relatively strict evaluations. (For example, a woman who would be Platinum elsewhere might be classified as Gold.)
I think that once you build a good relationship with the staff and can have various conversations with them, you’ll be able to discuss things like this openly as well.
If you simply ask for a lower setting fee out of nowhere, the response may end with, “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.” But if you’ve already built a relationship by saying things like, “The woman I went on a date with the other day was great,” or, “The woman from last time was good in this respect, but it was a shame that she was lacking in that area,” then they might say:
“Actually, she hasn’t received a date offer in three months, so sure, that should be fine.”
That may be possible.
This particular situation may be something that should be handled through the system, but being able to exchange information with the staff is also one of the advantages of a dating club. So I think this might be a good opportunity to start communicating more with the staff.
