[HN Gopher] Kokuhaku: Japan's Love Confessing Culture (2013)
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       Kokuhaku: Japan's Love Confessing Culture (2013)
        
       Author : xyzzy3000
       Score  : 99 points
       Date   : 2023-07-02 10:25 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tofugu.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tofugu.com)
        
       | cubefox wrote:
       | I find it really lame that this article includes a long list of
       | "fails" instead of successful examples.
        
         | resolutebat wrote:
         | Successful confessions are all alike; every unsuccessful
         | confession is unsuccessful in its own way.
         | 
         | Slightly more seriously, the format of a confession is pretty
         | basic ("I like you, wanna hang?") and the article does include
         | several canonical versions. But at the end of day it's just
         | confirming that the attraction is mutual, and most of the fails
         | are about randos totally failing this part.
        
           | cubefox wrote:
           | I think the article implied pretty clearly that some things
           | which count as successful confessions in Japan would be
           | viewed as awkward or otherwise inappropriate in Western
           | countries. It would have been interesting to see a list of
           | such examples in order to see the difference in culture.
        
       | theogravity wrote:
       | I read carefully the first half of the article then scanned the
       | rest, so I may have missed it; it didn't seem to also mention
       | "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?", which is a poetic way of
       | saying I love you as well:
       | 
       | https://www.tsuki.world/world/the-moon-is-beautiful-isnt-it
       | 
       | https://www.wikihow.com/The-Moon-Is-Beautiful-Isn%27t-It
        
         | jareklupinski wrote:
         | the second half is where the gold is imo
        
         | bluepizza wrote:
         | That's extremely archaic and specific, and most people wouldn't
         | know about it. I suspect that, if explained, most people would
         | find it off putting.
        
           | bmoxb wrote:
           | Based on my (somewhat limited) experience, most people are
           | familiar with the phrase but wouldn't use it in any serious
           | context.
        
         | soraminazuki wrote:
         | As mentioned in the link, that comes from classic literature so
         | it might not be super common knowledge. Looking it up turns up
         | a bunch of "what does it mean" articles.
         | 
         | https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Yue gaQi Li desune&kl=jp-
         | jp&kp=-1&ia=web
        
         | arrakeen wrote:
         | i find it hard to accept that the origin of the phrase has
         | nothing to do with the fact that Yue  (tsuki, moon) sounds
         | similar to Hao ki (suki, like/love). can any native speakers
         | chime in?
        
           | bluepizza wrote:
           | Soseki was very refined and wouldn't go for such a pun.
        
       | linguae wrote:
       | As an American who spends a lot of time traveling to Japan and
       | who had experience living there (and who has dreams of moving
       | back there once I pay off my student loans), I've done this type
       | of confession twice; it's quite different from the ambiguity that
       | often occurs with forming relationships in America where people
       | don't know exactly where they stand. While it doesn't remove all
       | ambiguity (does she like me? Why is she holding my arm?), I like
       | the being able to clearly articulate my feelings, and I also like
       | the clear understanding from both parties not to behave like a
       | couple until we mutually agree to become a couple. I generally
       | find this aspect of Japanese dating culture remarkably refreshing
       | compared to America.
        
         | gautamcgoel wrote:
         | Did the girls accept?
        
         | PartiallyTyped wrote:
         | The same perspective exists in multiple places in Europe as far
         | as I can tell. It certainly does where I come from.
        
           | 331c8c71 wrote:
           | Surprising for me. Can you maybe share some links?
        
             | PartiallyTyped wrote:
             | Not really, just some anecdotes.
        
               | MikeTheGreat wrote:
               | > Not really, just some anecdotes.
               | 
               | He said, not sharing the anecdotes :)
               | 
               | Having lived in the US all my life I'd love to hear more.
               | Even if you don't want to share the anecdotes I'd be
               | curious to know which European countries do this.
               | 
               | And if you don't want to share that's fine, too. If I
               | want 'slice of life' anecdotes there's always This
               | American Life :)
        
       | FooBarWidget wrote:
       | > In Western culture, if someone suddenly and unexpectedly
       | confessed this to you so quickly you would start running, I
       | think.
       | 
       | As a Chinese I can't wrap my head around the concept of running
       | away because someone loves you. So to enter a relationship with
       | someone you have to _not_ love them while still loving them...?!
       | Do western people all have fear of commitment?
       | 
       | I'm just glad I'm married now (to a Chinese girl) and not having
       | to deal with this mess.
        
         | nonethewiser wrote:
         | Surely you can think of some example of coming on too strong.
        
           | girvo wrote:
           | The article itself even has a half dozen examples of
           | (Japanese) men doing exactly that.
        
         | neel_k wrote:
         | Actually, there are very similar situations in Chinese culture!
         | 
         | My understanding is that when someone gives you a gift, in
         | Chinese culture there is a social obligation to give them a
         | gift of similar value at some point in the future. So giving a
         | very expensive gift can be a very rude gesture, because it
         | effectively inflicts a large, unexpected expense on the
         | recipient.
         | 
         | In Western culture, there is a similar dynamic when it comes to
         | dating and courtship. The general expectation is that men will
         | ask the women they are interested in, and the women will then
         | accept or refuse the offer. The difficulty with this is that it
         | puts women in the position of having to reject someone who is
         | 20 cm taller/20 kg heavier than them -- this can be very scary.
         | 
         | So it is artful/polite for a man asking a woman out, especially
         | in the initial stages, to do so in a way that is ambiguous
         | enough that if she decides she doesn't want to continue, she
         | can back away without having to forcefully reject him. An
         | overly strong confession of love removes this ambiguity, and
         | thereby forces a woman into the uncomfortable position of
         | having to directly reject the man. This is rude, in exactly the
         | same way that giving someone an overly-expensive gift is rude
         | in Chinese culture.
         | 
         | Naturally, though, in China very close friends wouldn't be
         | bothered by how expensive gifts are, and that in the West, a
         | woman pining for a particular man would be delighted if he
         | directly declared his love for her. But we have etiquette to
         | handle the failure cases, not the success cases!
         | 
         | Anyway, I'm always surprised how even though people are
         | basically the same everywhere, and share the same desires and
         | impulses, we end up building very different cultures. It's just
         | amazing how situations can be radically different and utterly
         | familiar at the same time.
        
         | tel wrote:
         | In my understanding of culture, native born American, to tell
         | someone you "love" them implies a great deal of intimacy and
         | trust. The word implies something that must be built over time
         | and is unique and lasting. It often has an implication of
         | confirmation after you've dated someone long enough to re-
         | affirm that you want an even more serious relationship.
         | 
         | There are lots of variations on that theme, but the point is
         | that when it's offered without the backing of a safe and
         | intimate, developed relationship, it reads more like "I am
         | obsessed with you". It can suggest a failure to be in touch
         | with your own emotions and/or a gigantic failure to see and
         | appreciate the recipient as an individual. An obsession with
         | surface appearance or even the speaker's own fantasy about the
         | recipient.
         | 
         | "How can you love me? We barely know one another. I don't know
         | that I currently trust you enough to have even shown the parts
         | of me you could claim to love. You must love your own
         | conception of me and I don't trust that."
         | 
         | That said, variations on "I like you" are basically the same
         | sort of relationship-opening confession and are often welcome.
         | It's considered normal to "like" someone's public and non-
         | intimate social identity enough to want to get to know them
         | more (through more intimate dating).
         | 
         | The other big confession to note is "can we be exclusive/go
         | steady?" This one implies you like someone enough that you'd
         | prefer if you and they focus exclusively on this relationship.
         | Its rejection may end the relationship (or may not, it can be
         | done lightly) and usually comes between "like" and "love", if
         | it comes at all. Not everyone practices dating non-exclusively.
        
         | 331c8c71 wrote:
         | > So to enter a relationship with someone you have to not love
         | them while still loving them...?
         | 
         | It's weird and even offending to hear "I love you" (said
         | seriously) from a person who doesn't know you well.
         | 
         | My take is that you can say you are _in_ love and this may
         | sound fine if delivered right. Still, better be sure that there
         | is at least some mutual sympathy. Also highly language-specific
         | I guess.
         | 
         | EDIT: I personally find the non-verbal communication preceding
         | the relationships much more fascinating.
         | 
         | I am also curious if there are cultures with a polite probing
         | mechanism which are not humiliating for both parties regardless
         | of the outcome (reciprocity or the lack of such).
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | geraldwhen wrote:
         | Yes, many westerners, at least in America, fear commitment.
         | There is a doomed generation that believes they will find their
         | soulmate in their mid 30s and start a family in their mid 40s,
         | despite this being a biological delusion.
        
           | nextworddev wrote:
           | Try explaining much lower birth rates in China then
        
         | vore wrote:
         | I love you.
         | 
         | There, did I scare you?
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | I'm a native English speaker and I think it's at least partly a
         | translation issue; if you translate "Hao kidesu" as "I like
         | you" then it is completely normal to confess that way.
         | Translating it as "I love you" makes it a lot more weighty and
         | creepy. I don't really speak Japanese, but it seems like Hao ki
         | is somewhere between "like" and "love."
        
         | spywaregorilla wrote:
         | If you actually have a relationship it wouldn't be surprising.
         | Although it would be surprising to develop such a relationship
         | without formally starting it earlier.
         | 
         | The implication is that someone telling you they love you out
         | of the blue implies they very likely do not know you well
         | enough to justify such a sentiment.
        
         | imbnwa wrote:
         | Mainstream American culture conceives of amorous relationships
         | as fundamentally a fantasy of fortunate spontaneity, "the stars
         | and planets coming into alignment", rather than something
         | explicitly worked at formally; formalism, explicit terms, these
         | are antagonistic and disrupt this fantasy of things 'just
         | happening', and so have to be carefully approached, if at all.
         | 
         | This is not exhaustive, America is a big place, but in the
         | major cities and on social media you will more often than not
         | come upon this. Hence why you'll hear terms like 'chemistry',
         | 'rizz', 'ick', etc amongst Millennials and Gen Z at least, as
         | these terms describe positive and negative attenuations of the
         | fantasy of spontaneity.
         | 
         | The majority of my co-workers are Tamil and Kaneda folk from
         | India, many of whom are women, who're all in arranged
         | marriages. I learned a lot talking to them about this
         | experience as its mere existence is anathema in mainstream
         | American culture.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | It seems very clear which version you prefer, but why do you
           | call it a "fantasy" of spontaneity?
           | 
           | Because it happens all the time, it's no fantasy at all. You
           | might not like it, but it very much exists. It's not just
           | something from the movies, it's how basically everyone I know
           | who's married got started.
           | 
           | You're right that arranged marriage is very much anathema to
           | mainstream American culture, since arguably the most central
           | value of the country is that of individual choice/liberty.
        
             | imbnwa wrote:
             | >It seems very clear which version you prefer, but why do
             | you call it a "fantasy" of spontaneity?
             | 
             | I should've been clearer: 'fantasy' doesn't mean 'false'
             | here. More like 'embellishment', an additive, framing, to
             | reality that makes it more palatable and exchangeable
             | (symbolically). The point of bringing up arranged marriage
             | demonstrates spontaneity itself is more radical than is
             | framed in the case of mainstream rhetoric around amorous
             | relationships rather than a partisan approval.
        
       | scubbo wrote:
       | > it was kind of rude to send a text to people while they are
       | probably sleeping
       | 
       | Not the point of the article, but this is a personal bugbear of
       | mine - no it wasn't. Text-based communication is asynchronous.
       | It's rude to _expect_ that someone is present and available if
       | you message them out of the blue (or, rather - rude to get upset
       | if they don't immediately reply), but it's not rude to send the
       | message in the first place. Particularly - it is never correct to
       | send a Delayed Message on Slack "because it's the evening/weekend
       | and I don't want to bother them". The four possible outcomes are:
       | 
       | * You send delayed; they could have benefitted from the
       | information earlier (e.g. there's an outage overnight and your
       | delayed message contained helpful information) -> your delay had
       | a negative effect
       | 
       | * You send delayed; they read the message when they come online
       | again during business hours -> your delayed message had no impact
       | (assuming you correctly guessed their business hours)
       | 
       | The only situation where "sending delayed" has a positive impact
       | is where there is a culture whereby a message _must_ be replied
       | to at the time it's sent. In such a situation, you need to fix
       | that broken culture rather than working around it with delay-
       | hacks.
        
         | cj wrote:
         | Whenever I use delayed send at work, it's for optics.
         | 
         | If I'm working outside of business hours (a few instances per
         | week) I don't like to slack my direct reports because I
         | personally don't want to create an "always on" culture at our
         | company.
         | 
         | If your manager messages you at all hours of the day and on
         | weekends, it can become unclear whether the same is expected of
         | you. So, I like to delay messages to 8am the next morning,
         | especially if they're not time sensitive.
         | 
         | Imagine a message "Just a quick reminder that project X is due
         | next week" sent at 7pm on Friday. Unless the person is expected
         | to work over the weekend, why not delay it to 8am Monday?
        
           | eszed wrote:
           | Indeed. My circadian rhythm is set later than some of my
           | colleagues, so if I'm working on something between 2200 and
           | 2400, I set emails to be sent at ~0700 - 0800, when I know
           | they'll be starting work.
           | 
           | I get no sort of he's-a-hard-worker credit for working late,
           | but plenty of up-and-at-'em plaudits when they receive an
           | email at what they think of as the "correct" time of day.
           | Meanwhile, I'm asleep, and catch their first round of replies
           | when I wake up. It's somewhat ridiculous, but not a big deal.
        
           | kbenson wrote:
           | Yes, where there's a large power imbalance, you have to take
           | that into consideration. I manage people, and if I message
           | one in their off time and it's not an emergency or something
           | I really need them to answer if they see, I'll be careful to
           | state clearly that no reply is needed or we can follow up on
           | Monday or whenever they are next on.
           | 
           | Its the same reason I don't make jokes deprecating them to
           | them within a group (and try not to in private with them).
           | What can be a joint form of bonding where you make light fun
           | of each other can start becoming bullying (even if
           | inadvertently) when one party feels like they aren't free to
           | fire back anymore. I've witnessed that dynamic before, where
           | childhood friends worked with each other and one was the
           | owner and continued the familiar personal reactions while the
           | other started feeling less and less able to interact that way
           | (at least in group settings).
           | 
           | Many of us are somewhat blind to certain power imbalances,
           | others of us are very aware because they deal with it in many
           | aspects of our lives. In any case, it usually matters if
           | there's an imbalance, whether we want it to or not.
        
             | bee_rider wrote:
             | I think it doesn't even need to be a large power imbalance.
             | It is probably best for the longest-serving worker (aka,
             | someone with only social seniority) to set a good example
             | by making sure routine communications only show up during
             | the work week.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | No, I think it's inconsiderate to text people when they are
         | likely sleeping. If you have kids/family you typically don't
         | silence your phone at night in case there's an emergency. So if
         | I get a text at 03:00 I'm likely to wake up and look at it.
         | 
         | You're the one sending the message, so you're the one who
         | should wait to do it when it it will be convenient for the
         | recipient. If you're texting me in the middle of sleeping
         | hours, you're telling me that your convenience is more
         | important to you than mine.
        
           | jtriangle wrote:
           | 'Do not disturb' settings have been granular enough for
           | awhile now, such that this is no longer a problem unless you
           | want it to be.
        
             | layer8 wrote:
             | Note that the article is ten years old, and the recounted
             | event would have been even longer ago.
        
             | eredengrin wrote:
             | I think you're probably overestimating how much most people
             | know or care to worry about setting custom do not disturb
             | settings, although that's just my anecdotal guess based on
             | interactions with friends outside the tech space. Also, I'd
             | consider myself pretty on top of tech (enough to run
             | cyanogenmod/lineageos/grapheneos) and have a custom DnD
             | schedule, but I had no idea setting it per contact was an
             | option until you hinted that it might be. I've been wanting
             | that for a while so thanks for letting me know, but also
             | I'd imagine most people are very unaware of that option
             | still.
        
             | FooBarWidget wrote:
             | It might surprise you how many people don't know how to, or
             | don't bother with, setting DnD. Or they simply forgot this
             | time to enable it.
             | 
             | Sure you can blame the other person. But what good outcome
             | do you gain by such an attitude?
        
               | userbinator wrote:
               | _Sure you can blame the other person. But what good
               | outcome do you gain by such an attitude?_
               | 
               | People need to learn to take control of their situation
               | and not rely on others to do it for them? That seems to
               | be the norm in Western cultures, at least.
        
         | coldtea wrote:
         | > _Not the point of the article, but this is a personal bugbear
         | of mine - no it wasn 't. Text-based communication is
         | asynchronous._
         | 
         | That's irrelevant. They still get a notification to disturb
         | them, they still can see it when looking at their phone, they
         | can still be concerned about the content and how to respond
         | later even if they don't answer, they can still be concerned
         | about the content even if they don't read it, they could very
         | well be waiting an important message at the time, they might
         | have an experience with other people/ex-partners/etc pressuring
         | them to answer immediately, and so on.
         | 
         | Technical terms like "asynchronous" don't mean anything to how
         | people use a technology. Common social expectations do.
        
           | rowanG077 wrote:
           | They get a notification if they have chosen to receive
           | notifications. It's not like the sender forces themselves
           | upon someone else.
        
             | userbinator wrote:
             | I think this and the other comments here show an important
             | cultural difference: Western culture places more emphasis
             | on personal responsibility: if you don't want to be
             | disturbed, the expectation is that you turn off
             | notifications. Japanese culture seems to be the opposite,
             | in that you expect others to know you do not want to be
             | disturbed, and thus you don't bother with turning off
             | notifications.
        
               | aidenn0 wrote:
               | My wife is incredibly western and low-context. She still
               | gets pissed off when friends and/or family in different
               | timezones wake her up in the middle of the night with
               | text messages.
        
               | bluepizza wrote:
               | Western culture is not an unified blob, as it encompasses
               | wildly different languages, customs, and peoples, ranging
               | from Sweden to Mexico.
               | 
               | And just the same, Japanese people are not one unified
               | blob and each have their own preferences regarding
               | texting, just like the rest of us.
        
               | coldtea wrote:
               | Doesn't matter, we can still talk about Western culture
               | (meaning mostly Anglosaxon in this context, and including
               | Europe in others) and Japanese culture.
               | 
               | It's about defaults and majority/average preferences, not
               | about "every single one does this" and it gets tiring to
               | remind people otherwise, as if they don't know.
        
               | bluepizza wrote:
               | It does matter, because the conversation is inaccurate at
               | best when one tries to generalize their own personal
               | experiences as the whole Western spectrum. Dating in
               | Alabama is quite different from Rhode Island. We don't
               | hold enough information to understand "defaults" or
               | "majorities". Heck, we are at Hacker News, hardly the
               | epicenter of social butterflies.
               | 
               | So even if there was such a thing as default, we wouldn't
               | know it. Let alone from a foreign country that most
               | natives don't speak a foreign language. How many Japanese
               | relationships did you have to form such knowledge on the
               | majority?
               | 
               | Last, but not least, it is not tiring to remind people to
               | reframe the conversation. It is healthy and constructive.
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | They get a notification if they haven't _actively opted
             | out_ of notifications. I think there is an important
             | distinction between  "not opting out" and "choosing to"
        
             | layer8 wrote:
             | Note that the article is from 2013, when automatic
             | silencing of notifications at night was still relatively
             | new. Do Not Disturb on iOS was just introduced one year
             | prior. Previously you wouldn't message someone at
             | inappropriate hours, just like you wouldn't call them.
        
             | coldtea wrote:
             | Now on top of annoying them, now you're dictating their
             | phone settings too?
             | 
             | What if they don't want to stop notifications?
             | 
             | What if they don't know how to do it?
             | 
             | What if they want to still get one from the child or
             | partner or friend who's travelling if anything happens to
             | them?
             | 
             | Should they turn it on and off for your convenience, lest
             | you have to forego sending a non-essential text at night?
        
               | rowanG077 wrote:
               | I'm not dictating anything. You don't want notifications?
               | Great! You can disable them. You want notifications only
               | between these sets of timespans? No problem! Oh you want
               | blacklist/whitelist certain groups/people? Can do!
               | 
               | The receiver has full agency of when they receive
               | notifications and of whom. In fact a person NOT sending a
               | message and keeping it stored later is, in fact, taking
               | away agency of the receiver. The sender assumes he knows
               | better then the receivers.
        
               | em-bee wrote:
               | my phone allows me to set who i get notifications from.
               | (my settings are to silence everyone except immediate
               | family)
               | 
               | if they don't know how, the first time they bring up this
               | issue, i'll help them change their settings.
               | 
               | yes, there are always corner cases, and there may be a
               | situation where it is necessary to avoid sending messages
               | at certain times. but this can be communicated. what
               | bothers me is people getting upset if they receive a
               | message at the wrong time as if it was the senders fault.
        
         | blown_gasket wrote:
         | I hold the opposite opinion to most of this.
         | 
         | Text messaging, yes is asynchronous - but you don't know what
         | the settings of the persons device are. They could have
         | forgotten or not have quite hours set and now it is very much a
         | synchronous notification even if it's not synchronous
         | communication.
         | 
         | Sending delayed - again things happen. I would rather send a
         | delayed message when I am in full control of the situation
         | rather than possibly not the next morning due to any chain of
         | events from weather, traffic, family, etc.
         | 
         | I feel like this comes from my philosophy of even if
         | individuals are correct, it doesn't mean they are kind. We live
         | in a community with individuals and we should compromise and
         | balance things where needed.
        
           | zen928 wrote:
           | Kindness starts by not immediately assuming the motivations
           | of others to be malicious, and to understand why someone else
           | would perform their actions. Here, it's very clear from how
           | all paths are laid out that sending messages to you early
           | even if you won't act on them is only ever a net-benefit if
           | you remove your ego from the equation. Soothing fragile minds
           | and compromise aren't the same thing.
        
           | dfxm12 wrote:
           | _but you don 't know what the settings of the persons device
           | are. They could have forgotten or not have quite hours set_
           | 
           | FWIW, this is the prevailing opinion of almost everyone I
           | know. The only question is what is the appropriate window
           | when you should text. 8-22? 10-22?
        
         | lb4r wrote:
         | I'd say it's up to the individual whether they find something
         | rude or not. It's not an objective truth, and it certainly
         | varies between cultures. On top of that, different forms of
         | communication have different conventions and practices. Slack
         | is different from normal texts, which are different from
         | emails, and so on, and they permeate your life to various
         | degrees.
        
           | rhn_mk1 wrote:
           | It's rather meaningless to let the receiver decide. It means
           | that the only safe-not-to-be-rude option is to adhere to the
           | strictest interpretation of rudeness. At the extreme
           | sensitivity, you basically can't communicate with anyone
           | unless you ask their preferences beforehand over a confirmed-
           | not-rude channel.
           | 
           | Following this direction puts the default for each medium,
           | regardless of its properties, into "it's rude to attempt
           | communication".
           | 
           | IMO, it's overkill. We invented communication to communicate,
           | and we built in things like being asynchronous to some forms
           | of communication. So we should not give them up just because
           | someone might find it rude. There's a level after which the
           | sender should have more say over what is rude than the
           | receiver.
        
             | smallnix wrote:
             | I perceive it as rude to get messages in the middle of the
             | night.
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | you missed one outcome: the message is buried under a bunch of
         | other messages, or even ignored because it didn't come during
         | work hours. (assuming both sides know each others work hours)
         | 
         | yes, i agree that getting upset when you get a message while
         | sleeping is not right, but sending a delayed message when you
         | have the option to can be a good idea.
        
       | golemiprague wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | > _Is it like or is it love?_
       | 
       | It's definitely just like.
       | 
       | Sure, we say "I loved that donut" or "I love her personality!"
       | but you'd never just straight-up say "I love you" with that
       | meaning because it would be completely misunderstood.
       | 
       | So this whole article seems premised on a mistranslation that the
       | author brings up but never actually admits.
        
         | franciscop wrote:
         | Coming from Spain we have a similar difference between like and
         | love that you don't in English so it might be difficult to
         | grasp. Basically we have a middle-level between both of them:
         | 
         | 1. I like you. Me gustas. Suki-desu -> very early in the
         | relationship, or to start off
         | 
         | 2. [blank]. Te quiero. Daisuki-desu -> formal couple, to
         | express feelings of love
         | 
         | 2.5 I love you -> formal couple after long time dating I
         | believe, a bit stronger than those two terms above
         | 
         | 3. [blank]. Te amo. Aishiteru -> poetic, life-partners,
         | basically we can get married
         | 
         | The "I love you" in English sits somewhere between those two in
         | Spanish/Japanese. If forced to put it in a group, probably the
         | second one would be better and I'd say there's no 3rd one
         | equivalent, since it's really not as strong as the 3rd one, but
         | stronger than the 2nd one.
        
         | gryson wrote:
         | Agreed. The author's interpretation is unconventional. Hao
         | kidesu (suki desu) is clearly closer to the English "I like
         | you" than "I love you" in this context.
         | 
         | Japanese people would be just as put off by someone confessing
         | with the loftier Ai shiteiru (ai siteiru) "I love you" as
         | someone saying "I love you" in English.
        
       | minikomi wrote:
       | I'm just shocked they didn't use the Shinjuku edition "LOVE"
       | sculpture. Missed opportunity!
       | 
       | https://maps.app.goo.gl/JGE9smpyCJte7p5z8
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | jonjon16 wrote:
       | I know the grass seems always greener on the other side and this
       | culture has its own set of problems but I still think I would
       | prefer this over what the west has to offer in the dating market.
       | I absolutely hate the ambiguity of the relationship in the west,
       | "Dating? I'm not sure, we have only started sleeping together a
       | month ago. They might still be seeing other people." And yes, not
       | everywhere is like this but around my parts, seeking a serious
       | relationship is a recipe for disaster and not something worth
       | spending any sort of asset for.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | This feels very similar to _namorar_ in Brazilian culture, which
       | is a verb that is basically means  "become/be an exclusive
       | couple".
       | 
       | If you've started going on dates, then at some point someone will
       | ask the other to _namorar_. It 's a very explicit ask, e.g.
       | "let's be boyfriend/girlfriend".
       | 
       | While in the US it's not unusual to just organically become a
       | couple and never actually discuss it "officially", the official
       | ask is usually a really meaningful event in a relationship in
       | Brazil. Technically it means that hooking up with someone else
       | before it wasn't cheating, but afterwards it definitely is.
       | 
       | But _namorar_ is definitely not  "love". And you'd never declare
       | it _before_ going on a first date. Usually it would be after
       | several weeks /months of dating, depending on how serious you
       | felt about each other.
        
         | [deleted]
        
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