When You Should Confess Your Feelings to a Japanese Girl | Guidable - Your Guide to a Sustainable, Wellbeing-centred Life in Japan

When You Should Confess Your Feelings to a Japanese Girl

By Guidable Writers Oct 11, 2017

This post is also available in: Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional)

When should you confess your feelings? Do you know how to start a relationship with a Japanese girl? Even if you are going on “dates” together, that does not necessarily mean you are “dating” them, per say. There is a custom in Japan that one of the couple confesses his or her feelings to the other, and after both agree to be together, they can start to go on real date-dates, incorporate physical contact, etc…

Why Is It Important to Confess Feelings to Japanese Girls?

So this is how we start to have a real relationship. But when do you have to confess your feelings to the person you are interested in? Here is a strategy which may help you plan out when to tell your feelings. So don’t miss this chance to get your relationship rolling!

1. The Third Date Is a Good Time to Pronounce Your Love

There is a statistic from Mynavi woman about how many dates you should go through before confessing your feelings to him or her. It is still a Japanese custom that the men are the ones who start the important conversations rather than the women, so the statistics come from situations where men try to tell their love to female partners. Looking at the data, 46.0% of men answered that on a third date, they wanted to confess to their crush. Likewise, 51.4% of women answered that they wanted to know how the men felt about them around this time. That said, it might be a good idea to consider confessing after going through a couple dates.

2. Why People Stick to a Third Date to Confess?

So why do people like to go through three dates? Why not a first date or a fifth date confession?

There is a saying, “Sandome no shojiki” (三度目の正直) in Japanese. This is like “Third time’s the charm” in English. There is in some sense a superstition when it comes to believing in the number 3 in Japan, and it can prove to be important if your partner happens to be superstitious, which many Japanese are.

If you are on a first date, you want to know more about the boy or girl with whom you are spending your time. Many of people are not good at showing their true personality to others whom they just met. On a second date, you might be able to get away with telling them you like them, but it still might be doubtful if you really can stay with this person for more than a few days. By the third date, you and your future partner ought to be getting to know one another better. Plus if you think about it, mathematically speaking there are not many people who go out more than twice as a pair if they do not like each other. So not only does a third date feel like the right time, it is also just a logically sound point after which you should consider expressing your intentions.

3. What if You Miss the Third Date?

What to do if we cannot confess on the third date? There are some people who may feel that a third date is also too early, that the couple may not know each other well enough. Those who want to extend a few more dates before telling their love, when is the right time going to be? It is true that we can hardly understand everything about other people deeply, even if we have a relationship for a long time. But the longer you take to confess, the more anxiety you’ll feel about how the other sees you, and you may start wondering if your love is true or not.

A Japanese girl will wonder why a boy does not confess on the third date, and she also will be thinking he might not be interested in her. If the girl really wants to have a relationship with the boy, she might go to tell her feeling directly, but many girls might not have the confidence to tell their feelings themselves, and tend to wait for the man to make the first move. This may sound like inequality between men and women, but nevertheless in Japan some people still think men are the one who should start these kinds of relationships.

So don’t take too long before telling your love to your beloved. You can take further steps to understanding your partner and your own feelings more after beginning a deeper relationship.

Will You Confess Your Feelings on Your Date With a Japanese Girl?

In the end, Japanese people hold this common understanding that we tell our love to each other on the third date. So if you find a person to whom you want to get closer, first ask him or her out, and then try to get to know them better on the first and second dates. After three rounds, as it were, you should be ready to tell your love. Don’t miss the opportunity to confess!

Nottie/ Japan