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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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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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Translated from Japanese. The forum these are published on have mass participation from members, so there’s no “one answer”. I like translating these for fun, not for any real reason.
Original story: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0309/578766.htm?g=06

I belong to a hobby club that does both volunteer work and sports. After club activities we go out for lunch together. There is a woman, I’ll call her A, who joined a few months ago. When we were about to leave for lunch I invited her along, but she said “No thanks,” and left. I guessed she had her own plans that day, so I asked her again the next time. She refused again. The next time someone else invited her, but she turned him down. After that yet another person asked to come along, but again she said no.

It occurred to us that maybe she had some personal reasons for turning us down, or maybe she just didn’t want to hang out with us. Anyway, we stopped asking her to join us.

Today after club activities, A came up to B (another member) and I and asked us why we weren’t asking her out to lunch any more. Her expression was sad but her attitude showed she was angry.

B and I told her in surprise that we had stopped asking because we figured it wasn’t convenient for her. B added, “But you can come along today if it’s okay with you,” but A snapped, “I’m not coming! And I won’t be coming to lunch in the future either, but it’s only normal to ask me anyway, isn’t it? I feel like I’m being excluded…” she told us with tears in her eyes. Then she walked off and went home.

Should we invite her every time even though we know she won’t come?

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Translated from Japanese.

Original story: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0318/580634.htm?g=04

I am 33 years old and 3 months (9 weeks) pregnant. My boyfriend works in the same company and we’d been dating for 9 months when I got pregnant. We hadn’t been using protection for the past couple of months because we planned to get married if I got pregnant. That’s why as soon as we found out I was pregnant we started making preparations for the wedding. We announced the news to our respective parents, started looking for a place to live and bought each other wedding rings that cost a few hundred thousand yen each (approx. $1000).
Unfortunately after 5 days my boyfriend made a sudden confession: “I have a child who I officially acknowledged 5 years ago. I pay 30,000 yen ($320) in support directly into my ex-girlfriend’s account every month.” He apologized for not telling me earlier, but said he didn’t trust me enough until now.

What happened was that he and his girlfriend stopped using protection right before they broke up and she got pregnant right away. She called him a month after the breakup, told him she was going to have his baby and asked him to marry her. He refused. After the baby was born his ex-girlfriend;s lawyer asked him to take a DNA test. The baby was his so after a court case he voluntarily acknowledged the child.

For my part I just can’t understand why he didn’t tell me something this important before I got pregnant. My parents are furious too and are wondering why he hasn’t apologized to them till now. They don’t trust him and are trying to persuade me to abort the baby and sue my boyfriend for compensation. His parent on the other hand haven’t contacted me, even though they know what happened.

I don’t want to fight and end up hating him just to get a little compensation money, but it’s always been my dream to have a normal, happy married life, and I can’t imagine having that with him now. My baby has done nothing wrong so I can’t abort it but I don’t think I can build a family with someone I don’t trust. He still wants to marry me.

If there’s anything I can do or something I haven’t thought of, please advise me. Please.

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Translated from Japanese.
Original story here: http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2013/0316/580192.htm?g=06

Last December the man next door asked my husband to help him change his car tyres, claiming he couldn’t get a tyre-changing appointment anywhere else for a week. Bikes and cars are my husband’s hobby so he has a lot of tools. I’m sure that’s why the guy next door asked him to do it. In the end our neighbor stood inside his nice warm house while my husband did the changing alone. As thanks we received… 3 apples.

Today the same man came to ask for help removing a tyre. When my husband went over he found out the car tyre in question actually belonged to the man’s son-in-law, who was over visiting from the next prefecture! As usual the neighbor, his dauther and his son-in-law just stood around and gawked while my husband did all the work.

I got angry and told my husband to tell them to go to a gas station or car parts shop instead. My husband said he was surprised too, because he thought it was his neighbor he was doing the favor for.

A few minutes ago the neighbor’s daughter came over with a cheap swiss roll that can’t have cost more than 1000 yen ($12) and said “We’ll be counting on you again next time.”

None of the other neighbors come to ask us for help. There are several repair shops and car dealers in the area.

We moved back to my husband’s hometown in the countryside after he retired last year. He says he can’t turn them down because he doesn’t want to spoil neighborhood relations.

I’m not particularly interested in having neighborly relations with people like those but my husband says we’ll be living here for a while so we need to get along. I was furious. “Does this mean you’ll be changing their tyres every year?” I asked him.

They have two other cars as well. Isn’t there a nice way to turn them down?
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