#i also realise this then does not explain my previous text post about the kouhai dinner

[otpofotps]

did i grow up in 2016? have i made progress? is this what i came to japan for?

i honestly don’t know how to answer that and i don’t think im in the right place to answer that right now. but let me elaborate on the dinner with the kouhai, finally, because it led to….a lot. of internal ramblings…. some of which became external.

so this kouhai says lets get dinner and im like sure! but inside im like ummmmm but its not like we talk often or much at all and i only told one person about the upcoming event and he was like yeah idk maki sounds like a date and im like yeah ikr. but it was wishy washy like, it was also very plausibly not a date and just him wanting to get friendlier with a senpai. i have trouble understanding that maybe only because its never something i would do. this…is only the beginning of things that i do not see myself agreeing with the kouhai on.

so the dinner happens and it was like…. ooooookay. for me, it was just one of those things. if the cards were clearer i could’ve played it better. but i didn’t know the line and he didn’t make it clear and i fucked it up. because how presumptuous would it have been of me to treat it like a date and flirt? not that i know how. but i played it off super platonic because im incapable of putting myself out there like, hey maybe i have romantic intentions towards you. i just cannot do that mentally. its a hard knock life but its mostly just me making it hard. if he had made it clear it was non platonic i guess i could’ve done better. but…. then there was the other problem

we talked. obviously, duh, thats what dinner is, but because of the societal position we are in (as in our commonality is ipse) then like…yeah obv we are going to end up talking about ipse, and japan, and so many other things i’m uncomfortable talking openly about. guess what, i am not 100% satisfied. or even like 50%. but he was like its been a good year, hasn’t it? and im like, internally, dude, what in the fuck do you want me to say to that. you’re a kouhai and i’ve had a years longer worth of experience in japan and my answer is no, i’ve not had a great year. i didn’t want to say that. i didn’t want to say that to someone who still has a lot of potential to do whatever he wants in japan. it is entirely possible for him to achieve/maintain happiness in japan. but we are not the same people. and my experience of ipse is probably very different from what yours will be.

so talking to him brought out a lot about what i was thinking applying to japan and what i think now. this dinner happened like second to last week of december. fitting or just a downer for the end of the year, can someone else clarify for me because oh dear god it did get worse from there

it became incredibly, amazingly, horrifyingly clear how different we are. in almost everything we talked about that i had an opinion on, he had the opposite. and worse, he reminds me a lot of this particular person in my department that i have decided from here onwards i hate… i cannot remember what i call him here. maybe [y]. they have such…similarities.

it scares me because ive spent an entire year understanding why i don’t trust people like [y]. i hate being like oo emotions scary the world is bad and cynicism is the answer im not one of those people. but there is always a part of me that distrusts certain people. most people (all people?) maybe, until i feel some certain tick where i feel like suddenly i can show that i am emotionally invested in our friendship / whatever. it feels so dumb typing that out. but its something i need to confront. this text post isnt the time…. but [y] has been such a justification for why i do this. because people like [y] exist. people that i feel like i can be friends with and then go and humiliate you or make fun of you or imply your friendship means nothing to them. this sounds like [y] fucked me up or something and i promise he didn’t, i’ve always been like this, but it sucks that [y] is someone i still have to deal with, and i really don’t want to see the only kouhai i have a connection to become someone that i never can invest feeling into a relationship with.

so yes. i do not see myself being able to smoothly befriend the kouhai. or like…whatever, you know. but then the Key conversation happened which led to…some drunken ramblings that unfortunately i don’t recall very well but i’m sure my friends do.

so. god….. it was just such. i overreacted. but tbh its not a topic to have been talking about on a potential date not date. basically, it went like “well i came to university in japan because i want to marry a japanese person” (him)

and just like that i just. was like ….no. i cannot explain what took over me but i was just like. no. “you chose the country of your university based on who you want to marry? aren’t you like 18?”

“well…yeah.”

not that the conversation really exploded after that but for me at that point…it was not a good evening. the rest of that conversation was basically “so you wouldn’t base your career decisions depending on your spouse?” (him) “fuck no” “…thats…unusual…” “really? i feel like thats something you could expect from rikejos” (i am so dumb please don’t punch me) “not really?”

for him, he probably meant that not as a wife in japan obligatorily follows husbands career path trajectory and abandons her own career if necessary, but as in partners will consider their partner (non specific genders) in times of career choices. i took it as the first one because i am so dumb, and girls and feminism and japan and marriage is really, really, apparently /really/, touchy subject for me.

so i was touchy and a little miffed for really no real reason, and then a week later i drank too much vodka and went on a rant about this specific conversation and girls in japan, and how that’s not who i want to be, i want to have a career, blah blah blah i am really the worst. not because i have strong opinions about something that is certainly a valid topic to have strong opinions about but i put down other types of woman. i basically said something (on the vodka fueld rant) about how i don’t want to be a housewife, how im meant for more than that. and it breaks my heart that i said that (my friend told me later). because that’s not who i want to be. that’s not feminism. feminism shouldn’t be that being a housewife is a shameful thing or lesser thing. feminism is the right to CHOOSE. you want a career as a researcher? go ahead! you want to stay home and take care of the home? go ahead! its about not being reduced to stereotypes. its about that there shouldn’t be the assumption that the wife is the one who does the household chores. its that society assess the value of a job based on the money it brings to the house, but how can we ever assess the value of the housewife.

i am shamed and sad that i said things that i didn’t realise i believed. or maybe i knew, but i didn’t want to know, and hid my eyes from it.

and not that its entirely the dinner’s fault, but it certainly did bring it (my later drunken rant on [y], the kouhai, and girls in japan) out.

so yes. 2/10, the dinner was an interesting but not entirely positive (as of yet) experience.

#personal #i just thought of the corniest line from what is probably jdrama #人とちゃんと向き合うのが怖くて逃げてんのかよ #but it is true if only slightly #i also realise this then does not explain my previous text post about the kouhai dinner #lets say he is very different and that partly inspired me to make plans with some people ive never #tried approaching before and it went incredibly well #so i will not say it was not a dinner that didnt have any positive outcome