Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2011

Ever since the age of 19, when I fully came to bloom, I have considered myself rather an attractive girl. Not perfect. Nor stunning. But fairly eye-catching if you know what I mean. After all, if you don’t trust in it, who will? Every continent I’ve taught English on—Central and South America, Europe—has reflected this belief. I’ve sashayed from Austria to the US, through Colombia via Poland and have never felt anything less than divine. A treasure. A mysterious and exotic creature just waiting to be explored. So imagine my shock when I packed my little pink case full of Eastern promise and went in search of the rising sun—only to find myself terrifyingly invisible to the opposite sex. Black swan turned ugly duckling and fellow female migrant; I know you’ve felt that transition too. We’re big, we’re curvy, we’ve got skin and hair in an assortment of colors and (for the most part) good teeth. But that’s not what the men here have come to expect and it’s not what they want.

Insert gasp here.

Japanese women are beautiful, I (grudgingly) attest to it. Endlessly elegant and worth every ounce of the high maintenance approach they afford themselves. Up in their league I am… dare I say it… a a tad coarse. A touch manly. It’s tricky to avoid. Just like Cinderella’s gruesome sisters, my foot is too big for any shoe. Sorry single gaijin gals, but the odds are stacked against us for escaping Tokyo spinsterhood anytime soon. We aren’t symmetrically doll-faced, we don’t have the bodies of twelve year old girls and we’re rarely submissive. That’s why we aren’t beating guys off with our chopsticks. Your former attributes are now your flaws and the only men game enough are the creepy stalker dudes who think you bear a resemblance to that ancient Hollywood actress whose clippings they used to collect. If it’s getting so you might actually go to the shrubs across from your tiny apartment where Stalker-san’s been hiding, you know you’ve been in Japan way too long.

You might think more luck could be had with the scruffy western men. Wrong. Those ones you normally wouldn’t care to date any day of the week but are recently finding quite endearing in a goofy way. No, they don’t want you now, when they can pull a Japanese model or maid with little more than a cheesy grin and a “Kakkoi desu ne!”

You can’t blame these opportunistic men. This is their moment. The taste of Japanese poon is all a part of the experience and you, lady, are old hat. Mr Charisma is getting his own back for all the rejections you dealt him on home soil. And you too would be out milking it in a similar manner if the beef was more readily available. It isn’t.

But let’s not reach for our passports just yet. There might be a way around this drought and thankfully it doesn’t involve host bars or butler cafes. The discovery is… that Japanese men are not not attracted to us. More often than you realize, they’re simply afraid to act on their attraction. Tokyo women are bold, don’t let their kawaii look fool you, they go straight for what they want and get it. You only have to consider White Day post Valentine’s Day to catch my drift—men lack experience of the chase.

So if you want a Japanese beau just be direct. Don’t wait for him to come to you. Tap into your ballsy streak and speak up! My closest girlfriend and I have been terrorizing the city on this knowledge alone and we have achieved results. Said friend now has the sweetest boyfriend who’d do anything for her and how did she get him? She took him by the scruff of the neck one night, on Valentine’s weekend no less, and told him, “I’m coming back to yours!” Simple as.

Wouldn’t dream of doing something like that yourself? Well gals, you’re in Tokyo now, you should play by different rules. Be safe but sassy, the hot dates await. As a matter of fact I have one tonight.