Why I stopped reading Yomiuri Komachi

Do you know Yomiuri Komachi? It’s a Japanese webforum that’s basically an agony aunt site (http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/)*. People post their problems and other users give them advice and potential solutions. Problem posters can write back and answer questions, ask further questions or give updates on how the situation turned out, which was my favorite part of the site. I used to be an avid reader of the site right up to this month. I even translated a few of the problems into English on this very site.

*(More accurately it’s actually 発言小町 hatsugen komachi that’s the name of the agony aunt section, but nvm)

What I liked

yomiuri komachi screenshot 1All the questions are moderated before being posted, and answers seem to be moderated as well. That means both questions and answers are almost always polite, well-formed and easy to read and understand. No flaming, no vulgarity or cursing or l33tspeak or excessive slang. It’s done wonders for my written Japanese, and I’ve learned lots of proverbs and sayings as well.

Getting updates and clarification from the original poster. Most traditional agony aunt column have the aunt give the answer and then that settles it. Sometimes there are comment sections where the readers can chip in, but you still don’t hear back from the poster about whether the advice helped or not.

Why I’m quitting

yomiuri komachi screenshot 2– Original poster updates are on the decline. It used to be that most posters were at least polite enough to come back and say “Thanks for the advice” even if they ended up not using it, but now they just post the question and disappear forever. Was the advice good? Did it help any? What happened? It’s like having a movie cut off in the middle. So frustrating!

-Too many defensive thread posters. It’s annoying when people post questions intended to serve as a rubber stamp for their own opinions. “I wasn’t wrong to do Terrible Thing X, was I?” Even if 200 posts follow telling them they were wrong, they either just ignore the thread, pick out the few ones that agree with them or argue endlessly that they’re right. It’s the rare, rare poster whose mind is swayed and can admit they’re wrong when they obviously are.

-Too many indecisive posters. They post the problem. They get advice. They don’t want to take the advice, so they keep coming up with objections. They’re called “でもでもだって” because they’re always finding excuses to everything.

e.g You want to get married, your boyfriend says he won’t marry you. “Find someone else” the advisers say. “But, but, I love him. But, but, what if there’s nobody else? But, but, what if he changes his mind? But, but…” And it just goes on and on and on. Same with people dealing with mooches or pushy neighbors, it’s always “But, but I don’t want to hurt their feelings. But, but I don’t want to make things awkward” and on and on. Nowadays I avoid those “my boyfriend won’t marry me” (and it’s always the boyfriends, wonder why) threads on principle because the woman almost never leaves. She just hangs in there going “But but” until everyone loses interest and goes away.

yomiuri komachi screenshot 3-Too much divorce advocacy. It seems like more and more the only answer people have for any problem involving marriage is “Leave him!” or “Leave her!” Some of the issues are very serious, to be sure, especially those involving domestic violence. But the vast majority of problems can be solved with time, patience, communication and counselling. Especially when there are kids involved, there’s no way just moving out is the best solution.

-And it’s like the users don’t even consider separation as an option, they always leap straight to divorce, like it’s so easy. And yet those same users are super-critical of questions from divorcees and single parents. I mean only a fool would divorce someone just because people on the internet told them to, but the irresponsibility of the posters who would even suggest such a thing makes me shake my head. God hates divorce.

-Overall loosening of morals in general. In the past 4 years I’ve been reading Yomiuri Komachi, I’ve noticed a general loosening of standards, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. When I started reading, the overwhelming mood towards couples living together before marriage was negative. Don’t do it, it’s immoral, you’re wasting your time, just get married already, etc. All good advice. But recently it’s swung in the opposite direction. The number opposing it has gone way down, and those opposing it for moral as opposed to “He won’t marry you” reasons are close to zero.

yomiuri komachi logo-On similar note, in a recent thread a woman refused to sleep with a guy after the first date. Not only were there people in the thread saying she was being too hard-nosed but also almost all the responses assumed that she would be okay with sleeping with a guy she wasn’t married to if he would just ask her out first, or if they had gone on a few more dates instead of just one. The criticism directed at people who get pregnant before marriage has also gone way down – which is obvious since they’re basically encouraging people to jump into the sack with people they barely know. Such a huge decline in only four years, which makes me think it will only get worse in future.

tl;dr It was fun to read at first, but now the frustration outweighs the fun. Either I’m more sensitive to moral issues now thanks to the Spirit or there’s been a decline in morals, so it’s not as enjoyable to read. Reading stuff with people praising evil and putting down good is bad for spiritual growth, so it would be better for me to find a Christian advice forum and read the questions over there instead of expecting Biblical advice from non-believers. I’m done with Komachi Yomiuri.

My boyfriend is a mooch.

Translated from Japanese for fun.

Original story here: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0107/565121.htm?o=0

I’m a 48 year old single mother. I’ve been dating a 37 year old man for the past 3 years. For personal reasons we do not intend to get married. Last spring my son entered university. It is a very expensive school, so through that my boyfriend realized that I must have quite a bit of money.

Due to our age difference I’ve always been the one who paid for our dates. I even give him a little pocket money. Now he’s not satisfied with that any more. He asked for 30,000 yen (around $320 USD). It bothered me, but I gave it to him anyway. He said it was just that one time and thanked me and took it.

Now every time he sees me, he wants 30,000 yen. I think he loves me, but he’s started saying he won’t see me any more unless I give him the money. He’s so cruel. He’s given me the choice of either 30,000 yen per meeting or 50,000 yen per month. I’m not very happy about paying him every time. Do I have any other options, short of breaking up with him?

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Translator’s note: What an idiot…

Getting back with the boyfriend whose proposal I rejected

Translated from Japanese for fun.
Original story here: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0331/583265.htm?g=04

A year ago, I turned down a proposal from my boyfriend of three years.

At first I said yes when he proposed, but right after that his company suddenly went bankrupt. He desperately tried to find work but couldn’t land anything. Eventually he got a job as a temp worker on a contract.Unfortunately he was making only 8000 yen ($85) a day with no bonuses, so honestly I had second thoughts about marrying him. Even if I continued working we wouldn’t be able to live a leisurely life. I want to be able to give my children lots of love, and they’ll only be lonely if their parents are both consumed with work.
I couldn’t help feeling that way, so I broke up with him. Since then I’ve been looking for a suitable marriage partner, but no one that meets my criteria has shown up in the past year.

That’s when I heard a rumor about my ex-boyfriend. It seems the company he temped for hired him as a full-time employee and they’ve already promoted him to a senior position. His income is fairly stable as well.

Upon hearing that, I realized that I still had feelings for him, and I want to get back together. He did everything he could to try and stop me when I wanted to break up, so I’m sure I’ve still got a chance. From what I hear he doesn’t have a girlfriend either.

I’m a little nervous, so I’m here to ask everyone for moral support. Thanks a lot!

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Accidentally rejected a reverse proposal

Agony aunt story, translated for fun from Japanese. There are idiots in every country, huh?

Original story here: …ooops, forgot the link and now it’s lost forever. Oh well.

I’m a 32 year old man with a 29 year old girlfriend. We’ve been dating for the past 5 years. She proposed to me last Sunday. Without thinking I immediately turned her down, saying “I’m sorry, now’s not a good time.” But it’s not because I didn’t want to marry her.

The thing is, it’s her birthday next month so I was planning to propose to her then. I’ve already got an engagement ring and I was just about to reserve a restaurant when she proposed instead.

I never expected to be the one receiving the proposal, and for a moment I thought about returning the proposal there and there, but I didn’t have the engagement ring with me at the time. I didn’t see the point of proposing without a ring, so I ended up turning her down.

The minute I said the words, I thought, “Crap!” but she just laughed and said, “I’m sorry, I guess it was too sudden. It’s only natural.” She didn’t seem upset, but since then she hasn’t responded to my emails or answered my calls. What can I do to make her feel better?

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I don’t want to invite her any more

Agony aunt story. Translated from Japanese for fun.

Original story: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0324/581892.htm?g=06

Every one or two years, my friends and I from school get together for a small trip. Some of them live far away so the ones that usually do the planning are I and a few other members who still live in the area. Recently one person, I’ll call her A, contacted me saying “Isn’t it time we went on another trip?”

But the truth is… I don’t want to invite A any more.

My reasons are:

・Since she lives far away she never wants to do the planning.

・She finds fault with the plans we come up with. She’s even forced us to do them over before.

・Ideally we’d like to travel by train or bus, but she always says those are too much trouble for her. “Somebody bring a car!” (She never brings her own car either.)

・She makes selfish demands when we reach our destination (e.g. wants to go or tries to go somewhere other than planned. Once she tried to go off somewhere just when our train was due. My friend and I physically grabbed her and forced her onto the train, where she went crazy with anger…)

・She moves slowly. When everyone’s ready to go to the public baths, for example, she’s still not ready and makes us wait several more minutes.

・She’s a mean drunk. (Her excuse is “It’s my stress reliever!” Well she’s not the only one stressed out…)

・She snores.

・She hogs the bathroom and dresser in the morning. She also takes forever to change her clothes.

And many other complaints besides. The other members don’t like this either. One of them suggested that we stop inviting her this year, but someone else said they’d feel bad if we didn’t.

This year B is doing the planning because there’s a place she wants to go. I don’t think it’s a place A would like, so she’ll probably reject the plan. I think we’re going to end up keeping things a secret from A this time, but should we invite her after all?

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