[RealJames]

I think there are a couple fronts going on here.

I believe Nyororin understands how it is perceived by us, she's simply trying to explain how it's perceived by the other side.
I'm not sure if she's taking one side or the other to be honest, just being objective.

I am trying to explain that for westerners even "strong" or "good" friendships with Japanese people tend to feel relatively superficial and weak. Mainly for the reasons that have been delved into quite well.

The fact is that regardless of how we feel about it, it's not going to change the way they do, this isn't our turf, and that you gotta play by house-rules.

Nyororin you said "I (Nyororin) think the biggest cultural difference is that you (James, or westerners) feel the need to get the truth on this kind of thing."
And I agree, this is something that's very difficult for westerners to get past, we've got it drilled in our head that any relationship without honest truth is junk.

Something else I think we need to consider, is that a very good friendship in BOTH Japan and the west, is one in which verbal communication is almost unnecessary, where we just understand each other.

I want to tell a small story of the most hurtful tatemae I received, before I learned to just not believe anything good anyone tells me.

As some of you know, I stopped working for big English conversation schools because they're garbage and went independent, about a year before I did that I asked a lot of my students to describe the "idea English conversation school", I didn't tell them I was actually going to do it. I recorded all their ideas, crunched numbers for feasibility, and then when I saw I could make it work, I decided to do t.
At this point there were about 15 students who I had been teaching weekly for just over 2 years.
I told them I was going to do it, exactly where, and the exact details of it.
I didn't invite any of them to come, I knew they'd feel pressured to lie and say they'd come even if they wouldn't, I'd been in Japan for 2 years after all, I knew that much.
A few of them DID tell me they would come though, out of their own volition, with no pressure from me. I even said they didn't have to do that just because I was their teacher and I'd completely understand if they were more comfortable staying at the school where I had been teaching (Nova, eww).
They insisted they actually did want to come, at this point I foolishly believed them.
Long story short, they each gave me the weakest transparent excuses at the last minute, and none joined.
It's not all bad though, about 4 months later a dozen or so students I had been teaching, who left Nova before I had a chance to tell them I was going solo, ended up finding me and we picked up where we left off.

That amazed me, why the hell even bother throwing tatemae out there when it's not necessary to do so? To appear as being nicer than they really are? To give me false hopes? In the long run they come off a lot worse than if they'd just kept their mouths shut.