The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Gentlemen (and ladies), it is with great pleasure to inform you that it is Wellness Wednesday, and with mild displeasure to inform you that I am once again asking for your dating/romance advice.
I previously asked for suggestions on how to deal with being banned from Hinge. Quick recap of my situation:
3.6 roentgenexactly average height for an American male, somewhat nebbish-looking due to glasses)Since my previous post, I have started going to the gym 3 times a week. I can already see some improvements in my physique. On the social side, I've started reconnecting with friends more, going to more parties, karaoke nights, etc. and I've become a "regular" at a couple of good date spots. I've been off dating apps the whole time. In the past 6 months, I met 2 prospects IRL and got 1-2 dates with each, but was rejected both times thereafter.
Honestly, I want to try meeting folks IRL for a little while longer. I've forgotten how interesting "day game" can be, since I've been using dating apps for so many years. If nothing materializes by March or so, I might go back to using apps.
To that end, there are 4 things I'm curious about:
Location, Location, Location
I lived in Manhattan for 5-10 years but moved out of the city for tax reasons around the time of the pandemic. It's still a convenient 20 minute commute to get to Lower Manhattan, but perhaps I'd be more attractive to women, or have more opportunities to meet them, if I actually lived in (a desirable neighborhood of) Manhattan.
I really don't have a great sense of how important this is; as I said, I left Manhattan around the pandemic, so it's not clear whether my relative lack of success in meeting women IRL is due to leaving the city, pandemic-era cultural shifts, becoming less attractive, or something else entirely.
Clubs
I know nothing about the nightclub scene in NYC and to be honest I don't really see the appeal of being surrounded by strangers in a dark, sweaty room where it's too loud to even have a decent conversation. But there is one aspect of clubbing that, in theory, intrigues me: a literal market where dollars can be exchanged for status and sex. To what extent is that a thing?
My career is going well enough that I would definitely be willing to spend ~$50,000 in a single night if it would guarantee me sex and/or a 50+% shot at a long-term relationship with an attractive woman who is my type (see above). My gut sense is that it can't just be as simple as spending a ton of money at a club, at least not with my average-to-below average looks. I am also aware that the kind of women who would make a good long-term partners are, shall we say, unlikely to be hanging around clubs and putting out for anyone who spends enough dough; however, I would be fine settling for hookups/casual sex with good-looking women whom I encounter in such situations while I search for a higher-quality partner elsewhere.
How much benefit in terms of sex, dates, and relationships can be purchased in the NYC club scene? And operationally, how does this work; do you just book a table/bottle service and then the employees bring girls to your table? I am totally clueless here.
Drugs and Augmentation
I cannot in good conscience write a post in a rat-adjacent community without throwing a bone to the transhumanist crowd:
Testosterone/anabolic steroids. I don't believe I have a testosterone deficiency or anything, but T or steroids could give a boost to my physique, height (slightly), and confidence. Has anyone completely turned their dating life around using these? Curious to hear about your experiences.
Laser eye surgery. As mentioned above, I wear glasses. Probably this detracts from my attractiveness somewhat, though it's hard to tell how much (FWIW, multiple women have told me [during glasses-off pillow talk] that I have beautiful eyes and eyelashes). There's also the benefit of having better vision than I currently do, and without the mild inconvenience of carrying glasses everywhere to boot.
Limb-lengthening surgery. Could make me a couple inches taller, but I'd still be under 6'. Worse, I think my friends and family would find it really weird if I did this. Honestly I am just including this one for the sake of completeness; there is very little chance that I'd actually go through with it, unless someone can convince me that the results are so life-changingly good that the expense, loss of QoL during the long recovery period, risk of complications, and mild social stigma are all worth it.
Matchmakers/Outsourcing
I am aware that soliciting a matchmaker rather contravenes my stated preference to swear off dating apps for a little while longer. Nonetheless, I am fascinated by the ads I sometimes see for so-called "elite" matchmaking services. They always set off my bullshit detector, but I suppose there is a chance that they really do work as advertised. Do quality women actually use these services? What's their success rate like?
In all honesty, though, more than a matchmaker, I would be perfectly happy to pay for a service that constructs profiles for me on all the major dating apps, takes my preferences into account, and then goes through the long grind of swiping for me so that I don't have to. Literally just an API where my photos go in, and matches with attractive women come out. How is this not a startup yet? Call it "Cyrano", slap a cool logo on it, and you'll be rolling in VC cash.
Holy shit. Jesus. Did you type three too many zeros? What the fuck. Is it that hard to get laid in the US now? Buy a ticket, come to Japan, I'll get you laid in one night out in Osaka for a fraction of that cost. Hell, maybe even a long-term partner.
Out of curiousity, how would you do that? When I visited Osaka, it seemed completely overrun with western tourists, many of them young men looking for a one night stand. Lots of places were absolute sausage fests, and the local women seemed to have perfected the art of completely ignoring foreign men. I was able to interact by showing them I could speak basic Japanese, but then quickly hit my language limit, and it seemed like they were looking for a long-term relationship with someone that actually lived there. Dance clubs were just as terrible as anywhere else.
I haven't been to a club in about two decades. Women do ignore, or feign ignoring, but that's not necessarily real ignoring. A guy who dresses well, is reasonably fit, and doesn't have particularly odd mannerisms or something weird that would put someone off can talk to almost anyone. Of course some degree of Japanese proficiency helps, but it isn't essential (though this obviously will depend on the woman.) The first women I spent any time with here spoke next to no English and we communicated by passing across the table one of those electronic dictionaries (now replaced by phones.)
How would I do it, well I once went to a bar and saw two tables: One full of young guys sitting chatting with each other, the other full of young attractive women doing the same. Unwilling to let this stand, I walked over, first introduced myself to the women, started chatting, got some of their names, then turned, without walking anywhere, and talked to the guys, got their names, and then did the obvious and introduced the two tables. Before I was done with my evening they had all bounced as a group elsewhere. Sometimes all anyone needs is an introduction, and I'm not bad at facilitating that kind of thing. Although it helps if you yourself are a fun person, or at least not paralyzed by social interaction (though even that needn't be a dealbreaker). And of course it helps if you are at a place that is essentially a meat market, and it's past last train.
I don't know OP's age, obviously, and I imagine I am probably twice that. It doesn't matter that much. There is an age between graduating university and beginning a job when Japanese women are looking to asobu (play, hang out, party) and not necessarily searching for soulmates or marriage partners--due to the uncertainty of their career trajectories meeting Mr. Very Possibly would be an unwelcome complication. They want to be wild a bit before joining society. At this time such women are open to much, in particular if they live in Osaka but are about to go work in Tokyo or somewhere else far afield. (This is just my experience. I have been out of the game for some time as an active player.)
When were you in Osaka? I agree that since the end of the COVID era, coupled with the weak yen, some places (Namba, in particular) are, as you say, overrun by foreign tourists (many Chinese and Koreans, but bars usually by westerners). Some bars more than most, of course. I do go to Namba from time to time but only with locals.
Shinsaibashi is largely the same, depending on how deep you go down the side streets. Generally Umeda contains more Japanese in the 20-30 something realm than foreigners, and there are bars there that I used to frequent. I think maybe as a married man there is the possibility that I have gained a certain confidence that I did not have when there seemed to be more at stake, and thus I do not have the paralyzing nervousness that many single men have.
I am not a pimp even in the metaphorical sense but I don't think a guy with tens of thousands in pocket money would have any trouble getting laid, and not just by a call-girl but by a normal(ish) woman. I could be wrong.
I will say that unless we're talking SkookumTree levels of self-loathing (and, if his self-descriptions are to believed, unattractiveness) there shouldn't be any great problem.
Is this too vague? Probably. I don't actually have a plan mapped out; I just sense this is not a great conundrum.
Thank you for being a positive externality to the world. If only more people were like you.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link