Interesting glimpse into Japanese dating (or marriage? ) culture in your 30s. I really wonder where this book is heading to. I have to say, 架s friends pressuring him into committing to marrying 真実 were stressing me out.
I liked how 小野里 was interested in the dating apps and didn’t judge them and her directness. I also thought it was a good call to send the parents home, although I am a bit surprised how easily they gave in to that request.
I liked 小野里 a lot and I hope we get more of her, although I fear that she may just be in this chapter to provide some backstory and then disappear again…
Mmm, but I think also from their point of view they’re trying to get him to commit to a decision (either to marry her or to break up and keep looking for somebody else). They’ve just seen him be heartbroken by exactly this kind of “drifting along not fully committing to the relationship and then the other person finally has enough and leaves” behaviour, after all.
I just see no issue with being unsure. They haven’t been dating for a long time (I am reading too many books so I forgot how long they’ve been dating, but not too long I think? (Like 1-2 years?)) and he was, imho, right to say that they first should move in together. I don’t think I could commit to someone so strongly after dating for like a year, but maybe that’s just me or my surroundings I don’t know anyone who married their partner besides me (not even my parents are married haha), so it might just be my skewed view.
I tend to agree with you on the general principles, but in this case our characters are specifically looking for a marriage partner, not just a relationship that might or might not develop into marriage. So their priorities and goals are different.
That’s true! Although I guess you still shouldn’t rush it if you’re unsure. I guess in that case it would’ve been better to just break it off? But I also didn’t really understand why her calling him in a panicked way changed his opinion, probably because he realized how much he cared about her? Still kind of iffy for me, but I guess that’s mostly because the principle behind the whole thing (=getting married as a goal) is iffy to me.
It seems to me that the phone call awakened a sort of protective instinct, and that drove 架 to move things along. To me this seems like a bit of a shaky foundation for a relationship. It might be fine if there is more substance holding the relationship together, but so far I don’t think we’ve seen much more evidence of that.
Regarding the decisiveness question, as a single man in my late 20s 1-2 years of dating seems like way too short of a timeline for committing to marriage, but I’m really interested in hearing the different perspectives and I’m curious to see how it plays out. I do understand where 架’s friends are coming from, and I feel like age may drastically change peoples’ viewpoints.
Yeah… getting married without have lived together is stupid IMO. Dating and living together are very different experiences and you can’t really predict the latter from the former.
But on the other hand I think it is a reality that people past a certain age and that want to (or feel pressured to) conform to society’s expected way of life might feel like they’re running out of time. I actually had a what-am-i-doing-with-my-life-i-m-so-late-on-schedule personal crisis myself not that long ago at about 真美’s age.
) culture in your 30s. I really wonder where this book is heading to. I have to say, 架s friends pressuring him into committing to marrying 真実 were stressing me out.
I also thought it was a good call to send the parents home, although I am a bit surprised how easily they gave in to that request.
I don’t know anyone who married their partner besides me (not even my parents are married haha), so it might just be my skewed view.