The laws of love on the road

Throughout my travels, I have had the good luck to meet more than one great love. Oddly enough, I met them both in the same country, albeit in different situations and on different adventures. I met Andy at dawn, after a 24 hour bus trip that we both were on. I think I made him laugh and we walked across the northern Thai city together in search of a place he had heard of. We checked in and stayed up all day. We fell in love then. I left him on a train platform a week later. My heart ached all the way back to Bangkok. In the six years since hammocks at Julie’s Guesthouse, we’ve met around the globe for spurts of intensity. There was a delicious month in Japan. He made a quiet, 6 am departure from my life that time. There were boozy layovers in London and a New Years Eve in Africa. I Skyped him yesterday and read your article today. Thanks for reminding me how much love I found on the road.

Nice article. I’ve been wrestling with the problem of dating abroad (particularly Japan) for some time:

1. Some Japanese girls are unashamedly attracted to foreigners and to such a strange degree that it makes me feel uncomfortable. After all, from my perspective, they’re not interested in me, just my green eyes, tall stature, and light brown hair. Furthermore, how can you form a serious relationship with someone like that, if you know they’re just targeting foreigners, without consideration to anything else? They don’t even care if you speak Japanese, so long as you’re willing to play their games. If you want, I can point you towards two girls like around the clubs in Hiroshima, as well as two in Kagoshima; I’m sure they’re still there doing their thing – it’s hard to stay unnoticed when you like to hang off the arm of a different gaijin (this time, it’s appropriate) every weekend.

2. On the reverse, many normal Japanese girls believe all foreign men are only after sex, and have no intention of ever forming a serious relationship with them, let alone marrying them. There are some that do this, and muddy the waters for all of us seeking something more. Of course, many people are open-minded, but it’s one more hurdle to get across.

3. If you’re considering dating another foreigner over here, there are any number of things that can happen: many people come over, leaving significant others waiting back home; many only intend to stay a year or two, and don’t want to find anyone; many are so overwhelmed with living in Japan and adapting to life here that they simply can’t handle a relationship or even dating; after living so long in Japan and slowly meshing with Japanese culture, one finds that your personality may not be the same western one you used to know, may not be one compatible with foreigners anymore (by the same token, being saturated with charisma from the Japanese dating scene).

The main reason I’m not dating any Japanese girl right now is because I know I can’t come across as anything other than a charisma man with my broken Japanese sentences and half-hearted attempts at cultured conversation in a foreign tongue. As a result, I’d only feel comfortable seeing someone who could speak fluent English with me, so there wouldn’t be any confusion as to each of our intentions and feelings. Naturally, this is only temporary until my level of language proficiency rises, but it significantly reduces the eligibility pool. If I wanted to just act like a gaijin, I could head up to Fukuoka, barge into the nearest all-you-can-drink club, drink until someone starts to look attractive, and whisper five words of lighthearted Japanese (do you like Japan? Are you tired? Do you want to dance? Can I buy you a drink?) until her foreigner interest was peaked… shallow foreigner, shallow Japanese. Charisma men and gaijin magnets.

Ref: http://myso-calledjapaneselife.blogspot.com/2008/02/charisma-men.html

Love on the road.. wow..
I met a very handsome guy when I did my first solo traveling, it was in August this year. And I just traveled to Bali, still in Indonesia.
Our met was completely like a story in a soap opera. I was covered with sadness at that time (it was midnight), so I decided to sat alone at the pool side in the hotel. Stared at the beautiful August full moon, thought about someone else out there, wanted to cry but it was hard to shed the tears down. Then I saw this guy at his porch on the second-floor. I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t even care though. But surprisingly, he came downstairs, sat next to me, and we started a conversation. He was an American. What a nice conversation and we really get along very well.
We spent our time together since, along with two other travelers we met there. I enjoyed my time a lot with them, especially with this American guy. Felt like he is the man that I’m searching for all this time, haha exaggerated. But we still good friends ’till now, always have contact every day. It’s nice.
Maybe he really is the right guy for me whom I met on the road..