[steven]

Just getting through the first couple of paragraphs, you can tell this is written from the perspective of a foreigner about foreigners dating Japanese.

I can agree with a lot of what it is saying though, and kind of apply it to dating in general. Some of it is a bit... huh? though.

While a lot of people argue that Japanese have a hard time meeting new people after a certain age, if one is active it isn't as hard as it's made out to be. There are many places that offer 習い事, which is like "classes" I guess you could say. So while I've never heard of "salsa dance classes", I have heard of a number of other kinds of things like that. This isn't stuff that is really geared for foreigners, but it's not like foreigners are excluded or anything. At places like that you can meet all kinds of new people both men and women. Even if you meet someone of the same sex, you can sometimes find yourself in their "circle" of friends (who might be from high school or middle school or work or something like that) and you can get dates like that, especially if you are at the marrying age.

As far as the age separation thing being normal goes.... I don't think so. Men can be about 10 years older than their wives, but if one looks significantly older than the other I don't think it'd be considered normal. It's just that people won't "turn their heads" out of respect. Sometimes you'll see an old man walking around with a 20-something year old lady who obviously isn't his daughter. Nobody thinks that's normal... it's probably just a guy going on a date with a lady from some bar somewhere.

The sudden "shunning" by means of no-mail sounds kind of right. I can't imagine an intimate relationship ending up like that though. It's true that it might happen at the beginning of a relationship, but I wouldn't say it's normal after many years of a relationship.

I don't know though, maybe all my views are skewed. At any rate, that article should be titled "dating in Japan: a foreigner's guide" or something like that. It doesn't really explain the process of a Japanese couple too well. If at all, just purely by coincidence.