A Bad Word To Mix Up

Have you ever wondered how the Japanese actually meet members of the opposite sex, date, and eventually marry? No, probably not, cause there are so damned many of them living in such a small place, you'd think all one would have to do is reach out their arm and it'd land on at least a decently attractive member of the opposite sex who's single and of marrying age. But no, it doesn't work like that. Even in the most populous city in Japan, with a phenomenally high population density, arranged marriages prevailed as the predominant method of matrimony until I dunno, maybe 20 years ago.

Why, you ask? Cause people are way too fucking busy working and ignoring the shit out of each other to actually get to know anyone they either didn't go to school with or don't work literally right next to, and even then the odds aren't that good. This is no rare thing in Asian countries, and Japan is no exception. Guys hang out with guys. Girls hang out with girls. So how do they actually meet one another?

The Gokkon. Go ahead, ask. Thank you. It's a 'Meeting Party' which comes in two forms, kid form and adult form. The kid form is for college students, groups like clubs, or groups of friends, just kinda get together and go out in a prearranged, reserved outing to get to know each other and expand their social circles. The adult form is what I went to on Saturday night with Ty and Dave. A couple grabs the guys and girls from each of their lives, sits them across a huge table from one another, get good and liquored up, and hope some people get to doing the horizontal mambo. So that they can host the next one after they get settled. This is basically how people meet here. It's perfectly acceptable, and without it, the birthrate would come to a grinding halt, given the rate of abortion here.

Careful how you say that word though, cause goukan means rape. This can create all kinds of awkard situations when you're explaining what you and 5 of your guy friends are gonna do tonight.

Anyway, we got to Shinjuku, walked around the Kabukicho for like 20 minutes trying to find the place, found it, then started drinking. My little table had Dave and Andy, and Newton, who I hardly recognized and was surprised to see, who still reads my blog (Heya) much to my surprise. We played some drinking games which were good, and I felt ill for a good hour for whatever reason, but I managed to wait it out, and was fine just in time to have to play some more games, and catch my train back home, cause I worked on Sunday for a swap with Richie.

The train ride home was profoundly crowded, and I couldn't help thinking about the irony of coming from a meeting party where I met basically no one, and shoving myself into a sardine can of a train where I had more contact in 20 minutes with the people around me than I did with anyone at the party.

Ty and Dave stayed for the all nighter. I know they're home now, but I haven't seen or spoken to them yet. I imagine the following happened: Ty successfully scored with Keiko, the semi-cute but Japanese girl he was running game on, probably with added determination after the previous night's failure, and Dave went gung-ho for the tall and admittedly attractive Korean girl sitting two down from me at our table. Dave has a soft spot for Korean chicks.