Me and My Critics

Below is a sampling of the public drubbing I've been getting on the internet over the break-up post. I've taken some representative comments from a couple different internet forums and as best I could edited out the parts concerning Shoko and only left in the parts criticizing me.

****Warning: Crass Language ahead. Read at your own risk***

*Blog of a prototypical NOVA loser Ha Ha Ha

*I gave up! Why do people write blogs like this?

*+1. And who does he think he's writing to?

*Oh man, what a tool. They should teach you at school, when you have to apologise to a girl over and over, your relationship is doomed to failure.

*Did you read the break-up post? Hell, after the psychological beat-down she gave that poor guy, I'd say he's lucky to be left with so much as one nut.

Disclaimer: if said dude happens to pick up on the discussion here and read this, my apologies. I'm not really trying to kick you while you're down, I just happen to be reading this and, well, I just happen to be an accidental asshole who can't help himself sometimes. In all seriousness, best of luck to you...and uh now you know why I'll probably never ever get married.

*She seemed perfectly alright to me, and clearly could do better. I only wish that she'd realised this sooner, so I could have avoided having to read that excruciatingly long blog entry.

*Shockingly, this was an interesting read. The guy is clearly the stereotypical underachieving-tool-ex-NOVA-slave-laborer-doomed-of-sitting-on-a-couch-for-the-rest-of-his-life-thinking-about-grad-school-for-a-bit-before-a-limp-wank-and-a-nap, but he writes fairly well for that demographic. It's a strangely engaging narrative, even ironically comical in places. For example, somewhere halfway through his long entry on the break up, after painfully describing the various inescapable (yet missed) warning signs, and the hilarious lengths to which he thinks he goes to keep her happy--while in fact doing nothing at all but wasting time--he gives us this break up scene.

Even his break up is anticlimactic! It's gold, it really is. If I were a publisher, I'd be commissioning this guy for a full novel, working title: "Anatomy of a Loser in Japan"

*no goals in life except to live with the girlfriend, nor doing anything to change that except to dream about studying history in grad school. jeez.

*I like how she still has him by the balls, they're broken up and can see other people, but there's a small and unlikely chance that she could come back to him! Ah, the poor fool... Actually, reading some of his linked articles, it's no surprise that she has complete control of him, he's a bloody wuss. When he talks about starting a school with another couple, they got into an argument because the girl wanted him to be an employee, not a partner. So, he decides to talk to the other guy about it, which seems like a good idea. Yet...
Quote:
I intended to bring it up casually, but the right moment never came. Now that we weren't working at the same company, we didn't see each other every day and our meetings were more and more infrequent. And when we did meet, I wasn't sure how to phrase it so it didn't sound like an ultimatum. "Cut me in 50% or I'll go and open up my own school right down the street from yours."
What a bloody coward, I would have called the guy up right away and asked him about it, or made sure to bring up the conversation if we did meet. You don't just wait for a chance to vaguely drift toward it in conversation. I'm amazed that he was able to find a girlfriend in the first place.

*That guy is a major dork though, judging from the video. He is lucky he got her.

*Fvck that blog was a train wreck! But I couldn't stop reading... This should be preserved, distilled, at put on a motivational poster to remind everyone "at least I'm not that guy!" BTW, This story reads like the practical example of the marriage rates by income studies that Japan Echo ran last year. Good reading, if you can find it.

*I thought the part where she explained that she hated having to explain everything when he wanted to buy a car, get insurance, etc. I'm sure she's not the only Japanese gf who feels this way about their big gaijin babies. Feel bad for the guy, but he had grow balls sometime.

*so wait... the dude had lived in japan for 5 years and still wasn't able to do anything by himself? add that in with being a lazy, unmotivated piece of shit and i'd be running for the hills too. good on her for calling it off.

*I really actually feel for the guy. Reading his blog posts, I definitely sense a sort of intrinsic sadness in him. It's a shame he made the mistake of staying in Japan for so long... he could have used that time to build up his unimpressive CV that he constantly whines about.

*I loved his marriage proposal the best.
Quote:There was no big dramatic moment when I proposed to Shoko. Rather it was something that just came about. We had been talking about it for a while. At one point I think we were lying in bed, and I said, “I’m not going to stay in Japan much longer, but I’d like to continue our relationship.” And she said, “I’m not going to move to America unless we get married.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s what I meant. I mean I assumed that.” And she said, “Oh. Okay then.”

Not exactly the most tear-jerking of moments. I'm pretty well as socially inept as they come, but as far as communication with my GF goes we can talk about anything without having to be afraid of getting at each others throats. If he can't communicate with her without prancing around the issues, that's pretty well a dead giveaway that the relationship will never work.

*From his blogs, it is obvious that this guy was a complete slacker in all aspects of life. Romance, work, language, his future... he has no right to be disappointed; he has no one to blame but himself.

*I wanted to put the boot in but i've decided to refrain. My life is no box of chocolates either. Keep a stiff upper lad, a new shoko will come around.

*I don't see why it's appropriate to laugh at his misery.


*Quote
First off, I got hired by a well known supermarket that you probably know of. I mentioned I had an interview with them a month ago, but now they finally had a position open up.As Brett would say, “Working this job sucks but...Well working this job sucks.” It’s a stocking job; nothing exciting. And legally they couldn’t possibly pay me any less. But at the same time it won’t kill me. I’ve done this kind of thing before during summer vacation when I was 18 and 19, before I discovered the wonderful world of dorm cleaning. And I survived alright then.Although at the time you do tell yourself, “I’m never doing this again once I get my college degree.” And then here I am. Well, after 5 years overseas you can’t just drop right into a great job, right? And I figure its good to be doing something well I look for that better job. For me to think that this job is somehow below me is probably a very ugly form of elitism. I feel like I have to be making excuses for doing this kind of job because I get a lot of flack from people, especially my sister (actually just my sister), but there’s nothing that really makes me any better than the people who have been doing this for 10 years.Still, I wouldn’t want to support a family on what they’re paying me. Hell, I wouldn’t even want to move out from the parents on what they’re paying me.
misplaced optimism + no shame = comedy gold


*The sheer earnestness of him. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

* I actually feel sorry for the guy in a way, because it's a tough lesson to learn. But sh*t, if he doesn't wake up and straighten himself out now, he's going to turn into a raging alcoholic ex-charisma man whose parents are going to have to come to Japan just to bring him home so he can live out his last days in their basement.

*Yeah, he really screwed up. I don't really get what he was thinking when he decided to go home then come back then piss about spinning his wheels. Hopefully this is the kick in the arse he needs to get his life on course. Maybe I've been watching too much Korean romantic cinema but what if he comes back in 3 years having become a big name executive and sweeps her off her feet.

*Check out his kareoke act. Its two minutes into this video.

*I think some of you criticizing this poor guy don't have much of a leg to stand on. He seems like a decent enough guy to me.

*I just don't see much difference between this guy and some of the most vocal people criticizing him.

*Doesn't seem like a bad guy. Just has some faults, but then again, doesn't everyone.

*Has he blocked his blog from the public? Can't access without a password now.

*Yeah I guess he has .Probably been having a read of this thread. It dosen't matter though as the whole thing is already Cached on Google .Read and have a laugh

* feel sorry for shoko. people having no ambition are total twats. i kicked my jap bird into touch a while ago after she didn't support me starting my own business. instead she was happy for me to be scratching out a living "teaching" english for the rest of my life. fortunately i've found a new lass who's not only stunning but also has plenty of drive as well. shoko has done the right thing and this tosser is an utter waster.

*excellent find - one of the best links this year. up there with that twat 19 year-old blogger on the guardian that honesty linked.

*I actually really enjoyed reading this. And from what was said, I couldn't help but think if I met Shoko in real life, I'd probably like her a lot

It seems obvious she cared for him a lot, but knew deep down he was completely wrong for her. And, it seems he is. She wants security (which is completely reasonable) and to be able to live more like a typical Japanese girl. The blogger himself doesn't come off to me as stupid, just incredibly lazy. I've met tons of people like this to, that actually have some intelligence, but have next to no drive to actually achieve anything. He will, obviously, never really achieve anything great in his life in terms of career or finances. She clearly recognises this, and seemed to have put it fairly obviously to him over an extended period of time. He just didn't want to let himself follow the very obvious signals that she had given.

*That was, unfortunately, exactly the problem. She told him pretty blatantly, and it seems it went right over his head. She loved him, no doubt, but he was getting older every year and wasn't doing ****. It was finally evident to her that all those promises of grad school weren't going to happen and that her boy was completely unmotivated and unable to provide for her or their future family. As she said herself, she was just being rational...

*Actually, you don't necessarily have to be smart to be 'successful' - certainly not a requirement to be financially stable. You just have to be disciplined, which this poor lad clearly isn't at the present. I am the last person to be throwing stones at this guy's glass house, as I didn't really get my ass in gear until about last year. I was ambitious straight outta college but then decided to fart around in Japan doing the whole rudderless teaching on a lark thing. I knew it was a dead-end and I'm sure this guy knows it; it's just that he's comfortable -- too comfortable -- with just making enough money to take the JR into town and drinking at an izakaya at night. Might work for him but no chick who feels confident about her prospects is going to want to stay long term with this guy. The good news for this dude is, he can always strike gold in the over-30 dating scene. There's nothing they won't date/marry.

*He is the personification of a weak loser

*His notion of love seems a little too romantic, almost naive, but part of him seems to acknowledge it.

*Damn, that blog is a howler. Also a warning to those about to make the big plunge and marry a local girl. There are so many warning signs that LIFE WILL CHANGE after marriage

*He will obviously get entanlged with a rough-looking lady approximatley 5-7 years his senior, marry, and spend his days getting kanchou-ed by 3 year olds at the "Happy Robin's Nest Engrish School" where he works, dreaming of his "glory days" at NOVA. He will deserve this.

*Another train wreck of a thread. I just don't understand why people put this stuff up on blogs. Bloggy stuff for friends and family, yeah, but god that's some serious wearing heart on the sleeve. Would you want your friends and family reading that?

*"Trainwreck." I really dislike how often this word used because it ignores the carnage witnessed in the course of an actual trainwreck. Then, when someone really awful comes along, there is nothing to call it. This was like watching a trainwreck in all of its horrid glory. I had a hard time reading through it because the guy was such a lazy dumbfuck. Wrong decision/reaction followed by wrong decision/reaction. The lesson for all of us: Don't be this guy. Don't be a pussy and use your f*** head.

*Lastly, it always annoys me when people make a public blog and then make it private. A blog that is private from the start, I get. But this guy was either lazy(big stretch there), or hoping for internet stardom (what with his "charisma man" musings) and distraught at actually getting negative attention. I've always kind of felt that part of being a writer or artist means being vulnerable to criticism(in this case, likely accurate). This guy is rather just a lazy, attention seeking pussy

*Does blogger.com send you a PEOPLE ARE TAKING THE PISS OUT OF YOU ON THE INTERNET warning or what?

*Don't think so.Someone probably told him that he was been torn a new one

*Jesus Christ that was a depressing read. Do you know the poor guy?

*he's almost the archetypal slacker-gaijin-in-Japan. In that case it seems the woman was far, far smarter than he, and finally got fed up with his wishy-washy wimpiness and moved on. Doesn't really seem like a Japan-exclusive thing, but I only skimmed that monster of a blog post, maybe I missed something important.

*The point is that he was a good for nothing who didn't think he could do better, so he stayed with her

*uh, yeah, the whole saga was pretty depressing...I wonder if the guy learned anything from it? Like maybe he needs some more job skills? Don't go back to school for a history PhD (which, by the way, at most good schools will take longer than 4 years, at least in the US), try business, or computers, or accounting, something that leads to employment! By age 30, you need to have something marketable, especially in these tough times.

*And I really don't understand how someone can post something like that guy PLF linked to. Doesn't he feel embarrassed, telling the world at large that she left him because he spent 5 years, was it, saying he was gonna do something, then basically handed her a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free card. I wouldn't tell anyone why she left me; certainly wouldn't post it on the internet, where any potential employer who searches my name would be able to see that I was a procrastinator who didn't try hard enough to keep my love until it was just too late - boo-hoo.

*I read further into the blog and now I see that this guy didn't even speak Japanese after five years in Japan and dating this Japanese woman. Yikes.

Later edit: OK, I finished this blog. This seems like a particularly harsh example of a desperate and romantically insecure guy in Japan. The fact that he still wonders what would have happened if he hadn't told his girlfriend it was all right for her to break up with him is pretty amazing--it's pretty obvious that they would have broken up anyway, just a week or a month later. And it's also disturbing that he's still holding on to the idea that they're "taking a break" without being completely broken up. Here's a tip: when your girlfriend says she wants to take a break and date other people, your relationship is already over and the best thing you can do is cut your ties cold turkey.

*I read the article and couldn't help but feel like he's a whiny little SOB. Sure, he came to Japan and did things to try to keep them together (claiming them as "sacrifices" when he probably enjoyed his lax life as an English teacher in Japan), but he seemed to only put in a half-hearted effort. It's a nice thing to teach English for a couple of years but to try to settle down and seriously support someone, without even learning Japanese, is futile (unless you can pull a japanat). At least by coming back to America to study, he'd be working towards a better career. He just couldn't focus his life though, even when he had time, to really make anything out of it. And now, he is well on his way to becoming one of those 30-40 year old bums drifting through eikaiwa or ALT jobs. I can totally see where the woman is coming from. No woman should have to stick with a loser like him.

...And this folks, is why you've got to have tough skin on the internet.

As of now, the discussion is still on-going on a few of these threads. I have ever reason to believe I'll get a lot more abuse before everyone loses interest

However the thing is, a lot of it's true. Maybe some of it was phrased a bit harshly, but it's probably just the kind of slap in the face I need. I mean, let's face it, I have made a pretty botched job of my life up until now, and a good hard look at these comments might not be a bad idea.

The big problem of course is that my irresponsible blogging subject Shoko to a lot of abuse. (And again, on this post I've done my best to edited out the comments that concern her).

All I can say is that it was a dumb move and I should have known better.

Were I to try and give an explanation of my thought process at the time, the short answer would be that I wasn't thinking. The long answer is that while I knew all along blogging was a public forum, I never expected to get so much attention. There are an estimated 250 million blogs on the internet, and I had been thinking for a long time now that whatever I post would just get lost in the sea of blogs and not be of any particular interest to anybody but me and a few friends. And over the years my numbers at statcounter have pretty much confirmed this. On the average day this blog gets little to no hits. I was aware that post like this doesn't show me at my best, but I figured in a few months it would be one of many post buried in the archives where someone would have to wade through a lots of boring book and movie reviews in order to find it.

It's safe to say I severely under-estimated how popular this post would be on the internet. And it's also fair to say that after 5 years of blogging and no one paying much attention I had also gotten sloppy.

Well, this has been a learning experience for me, and let's just call it a valuable lesson learned. Together with the whole break up saga, we'll call it 2 lessons for the price of one.

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