Wota in Translation

When you find a guy you like, check his clinginess level first!

We’ve all seen a scene like this on some TV drama. There’s a couple who are on a date.

“Yujiiiii! Buy me an ice cream!”
“Okay. Wait here.“

The guy goes and buys some ice cream. They then have it together as they walk past shop windows with the girl going “look, how cute are those clothes?!” That scene. The super flirty, head-over-heels couple fawning on one another, not a care in the world for anyone who might see them.

Let’s be honest: people admire that kind of thing.

That includes me: if I was going out with some fresh, short-haired girl, I bet it would be so much fun going on dates like that. Even just imagining it makes my heart race. She would cling onto my arm… and in my mind she would be a bit of a smaller girl, so when I would poke fun at her for something she would laugh all cutesy-like. “He he he.“

But I could never be able to have a date like that. Why? Because I fundamentally have a dark personality. The few times in my life that I have been with girls like that, they were all cutesy and charged-up when I first met them, but as they kept being around me they would gradually turn less and less so. I guess darkness is contagious.

Furthermore, I’m sure I also have an outward attitude of rejecting that kind of clinginess. So while I, too, admire those sorts of flirty relationships, I’m really just not that kind of a person for the most part. In situations like that, I’m always unconsciously creating this atmosphere around me that says “don’t touch me!“

At the end of the day, I’m one of those guys who wants his partner to walk one step behind them. I’ve felt that way even since I was still in school. The only times I would allow a girl to be close to me was if there was a clear purpose for it. Say if I was riding on the same bicycle with a girl — in that case there was a clear reason for it so I didn’t mind even if she did full-on cling on to me. But if I didn’t have some kind of an excuse for that kind of behavior, I would never allow it.

In my home area, if you were walking around with a girl and acting all flirty with her, one of your juniors might see you and they’d think, “What’s with that guy? Gross!” You didn’t want that to happen. Even though deep down you actually want the girl to fawn on you, as a man you have this thing that makes you worry about what other people might think. Something that says: “Frolicking with some woman and acting all lovey-dovey… The man who does that is the definition of uncool.“

For the girls that are like that, the way they act depends also on what their partner is like. Every relationship begins with a period of you trying to figure out the other person. “I want to link arms as we walk… Will this person let me do that?” “Would this person not like it if I tried being closer to them?” The picture becomes clearer as you keep watching them and finding out what their preferred sense of distance is.

In my case, when the other person is trying to figure all that out about me, I must be unconsciously shutting them out. Thus, even when it’s a girl who would usually be acting all cutesy with her boyfriend, she’ll see my reaction and she’ll be able to read between the lines. “Oh, I can’t be like that with this person.” And she’ll give up — even though deep down it’s actually me who wants her to do stuff like surprise me by putting her hands over my eyes from behind and going “guess who?!“

To tell you the truth, I enjoyed acting like a tough guy in my student days. I would hand my wallet over to my girlfriend and go “whatever, you decide what we do,” and then we’d head out on our date. We’d meet up with a senior of mine and his girlfriend, and the whole time I’d be talking to him while the girlfriends would be talking by the two of them. Sometimes we’d go to a karaoke place together and, as a joke, I would purposefully choose a really romantic song to sing. “Look at how in love we are!” But I would never do that kind of thing if it wasn’t clear that I was kidding.

That kind of thing simply isn’t a very effective tactic when it comes to dating girls. If you’re like that, then even if you were to begin dating someone, it’s just not going to work out — not unless it’s a girl who happens to be into idiotic guys who like to pretend that they’re tough.

If a girl who enjoyed being flirty was dating me, I might feel a bit sorry for her. I bet that just by being with me she would feel part lonely; part bored. I also think it’d be the same thing if it was a guy who likes to be flirty, dating a girl who is “cooler.” The guy would be trying to fawn on his girlfriend, but the “cool girl” would be all “stop it!,” making the guy feel dejected.

But it can’t be helped: issues of physical intimacy have to do with one’s own physiological needs. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and you can’t force someone to be something they don’t want to be. You might try to coax them by saying, “I like you and you like me — what’s the problem?” But making it about “how much” you like one another would be missing the point altogether.

So how else might one approach this problem? Say there was a touchy-feely type of girl who was out on a date with her boyfriend, and when she tried clinging onto the arm of her boyfriend, he would tell her to stop it. Rather than being overcome with feelings of shock and thinking “he must not like me” upon being told that, it would be much better for her to simply realize: “oh, we have different needs when it comes to physical intimacy.” It’s not that the guy has anything at all against the girl; he simply isn’t very good at showing his feelings for her in front of other people.

Especially as of late, couples who are happily flirting in public have started standing out more. They’ll frequently be doing this sort of thing out in public, making the slightly elderly people feel like telling those youngsters to behave themselves. But for me, on the occasion that I do see couples like that doing those things, I’ll think “man, I bet that kind of thing wouldn’t be too bad either.“

I would think though that 80% to 90% of all men are reluctant to trying this sort of thing by their own initiative. By their nature, I don’t think there are that many men who would try to engage in that sort of clinginess, and I think there are even less men who would want to do so in public. Men who are a perfect match for especially clingy women must be scarce. Of course, there are some men who are able to adjust their “clinginess level” accordingly — those guys would get along with girls like that just fine. But I do think they must be the minority.

In that sense, it could be that having approximately the same “clinginess level” as your partner is one rather important aspect to consider when determining whether or not you two have compatible personalities. I wish for all clingy girls out there to find themselves guys who are equally as clingy so they can enjoy being flirty to their heart’s content. Not only will it satisfy them, it will also make their partner happy. Couples like that truly know no limits.

When me and my friends went on a skiing trip in my student days, there was this one passionate couple that looked like they’d come straight out of a TV drama. They both looked like actors — he was a handsome man; she was a beautiful woman — and they were as if glued to one another. They spent every moment of the trip together… until at one point, they suddenly got into a fight. The girl angrily took off her skis and ran off. “Hey, wait up!,” the guy yelled, as he ran after her.

Before long, they were back to hugging one another.

They were the kind of couple that made me think, “guys, we’re on a skiing trip here, not on a shoot for a TV show…” But for those two, it was a very serious — if a bit hot-blooded — love. And rather than becoming fed up with their antics, it was more that I felt envious of them. There’s a part of me that wishes I could express myself like that.

But the thing with couples like that is that the “clingier” they are with each other, the easier it is for them to also get angry at each other and get into fights. But fighting or not, they both love having excitement in the air — they can’t stand being bored. If one of them does get bored, they’ll soon be trying to make waves on purpose. For example, the girl could try to show herself talking to and acting friendly towards other guys on purpose, just to make her partner jealous. Her reason for doing so could be something completely trivial, because what she’s really trying to do is send a signal to the guy. And then they get into a fight.

“Stop doing that!”
“Why? What’s wrong with me talking to other guys?!“

But they’ll make up before long, and then they’ll be back to gushing about each other again.

To put it plainly, they simply want to have a rich, intense love life. But while these “clingy couples” express their love to each other very deeply, the passion and viscosity between them must be equally as deep. That’s why when they do get into serious fights or discussions about separation, it can get scary. I do hope that those couples can find ways to avoid those kinds of fights, especially considering how relationships like that seem to change for the better once they reach marriage. I have acquaintances that were this way when they were dating, but after they got married they became very stable, great married couples.

There’s just one thing I would advise these slightly clingy girls to be careful of. For some girls like that, it could be that they’re clingy not only with their boyfriends but with other male friends in general, too. The popular belief out there seems to be that guys are happy when girls act clingy with them, but I think you would be doing yourself a favor by remembering that this really isn’t the case at all.

A lot of girls these days have become much more aggressive. At drinking parties, for example, they will freely place their hand on a man’s arm or on their thigh. Apparently, this type of “touchy-feely girl” is now a common sight. But while the average girl may have become friskier in recent years, it is by far the norm for most guys to dislike being subjected to that sort of behavior. I believe men are much bigger fans of the approach where they get to be the ones to say “you’re so fine” followed by “…let me touch you.” When the opposite happens and it’s the woman aggressively pressing her chest against him or something, there’s simply nothing sexy about that to men.

“Leave the touching to the guy.” That’s probably a good rule of thumb.