I tried 'Meetup' in Japan and hated it - Failed attempts at socialising

Hey, so I want to talk about the time when

I was in Japan last year and I was staying

in this guest house and there was this

Japanese guy who I was quite friendly

with, which was kind of unusual because I

kind of just ignored all the other

Japanese guys because usually I don't find

Japanese guys very interesting to speak

to. I find that they're too serious or

they don't really have much of a

personality. It's like they're always

trying to please you and I never know what

to talk to them about. They don't really

know anything about the things that I'm

interested in. I had to explain to so many

Japanese people what Game of Thrones was.

But there was this one Japanese guy who

was really friendly, and he kept coming

over to speak to me, and I really liked it

because everyone else kind of ignored me.

Yeah, there were other Japanese guys who

approached me and tried to talk to me,

but after one conversation, we never spoke

again. But there was something about this

one Japanese guy who I felt comfortable

with. I felt relaxed. It's funny, I need

to feel good about a person before

I can open up and feel comfortable about

them. We would speak in English most of

the time. He said he was only in the

guesthouse because he wanted to practice

English and that he had a wife and a

child, which is kind of strange because

why would you be staying in a guesthouse

if you had a family? He said that it's

cheaper to stay in the guesthouse for a

few months to practice English rather than

paying for an English class. We always

used to sit together and have our meals

together, and we always used to chat about

stuff. He always used to ask me, so

Daniel, have you found a Japanese

girlfriend yet? I always said no, and then

he just suggested to me that I should try

out this app called Meetup. He said that

you can go to events organized by people

and you can meet people. At first, I

wasn't really interested because it

sounded kind of scary, just going to a

random place, not knowing anyone, and just

trying to interact with people. It sounded

like something I wouldn't be comfortable

with. When I first used to go to Japan, I

used to have this really immature and

childish attitude where When Japanese

people wanted to speak with me in English,

I would feel really irritated and I

wouldn't want to speak in English to

Japanese people at all. I would just be

really cold and unfriendly when they

started speaking in English, and I would

always try to speak back to them in

Japanese. And after a while, I realized

that this was really selfish and immature,

and after a few years, I started to stop

caring about speaking in Japanese. I

actually enjoyed speaking in English more

than Japanese just because it was easier.

And I really enjoyed speaking to this

Japanese guy in English because I felt

like I wanted to help him. I felt like

he's being so friendly to me and he's the

only one here who's sitting with me and

keeping me company. I felt like I wanted

to give something back to him, and I was

really enthusiastic about helping him with

his English. I felt like he was an older

brother to me. There was that kind of

feeling to him. After a few weeks, he told

me that he was moving out of the

guesthouse to go back to his family, and I

felt really disappointed. I felt like I

wanted him to stay. He did come back to

the guesthouse a few times just to visit,

and I did meet up with him a few times to

go for a drink and meet his friends.

After a while, I felt more and more

disappointed with the guesthouse. I felt

like I didn't get on with anyone there. I

didn't have a group of friends. I felt

like there was no one in the guesthouse

that I really could connect with or I

could relate to. And then I remembered the

conversation we had about the app Meetup,

and I thought, hey, why don't I give it a

try? What's the worst that could happen?

It's not like there's anyone in this

guesthouse that that I feel like I'm going

to become friends with. So I thought I'd

give Meetup a try. I downloaded it from

the App Store, I created an account, and I

searched for events around my area. So I

searched for events and I had a look at a

few, and there's this one that caught my

eye, and I clicked on it, or I tapped on

it, and it was in this part of Tokyo

called Ikebukuro, which is quite nearby to

where I was staying. And I thought, hey,

this looks okay, why don't I give this a

try? I contacted the host. I don't know

why, I just sent him an email saying,

um, whereabouts is it going to be at,

what time, even though all the information

was already written on the event page. He

was very friendly, he just told me where

it was, which floor. It was being held at

this pub called Hub.

It was actually a British-styled pub.

There's this brand— not a brand, a chain

of pubs in Japan called Hub. It's like

they're trying to give the British pub

experience to people in Japan. I actually

made a video on the day that this

happened, so if you go maybe 6 pages back

on my video library, you can find that

video. I might link it on this one

actually. It's just kind of embarrassing

because afterwards I went to karaoke by

myself, uh, and I, I sang and I

took a video and it wasn't very good.

Anyway, I let the event organizer know

that I was going to be attending and he

said that there was a ¥500 entrance fee.

I said that was okay and I

went. It was in the evening. I arrived

maybe half an hour earlier and I just

waited around outside. And then after

about 40 minutes, I went into the pub and

it was terrible. I opened the door,

I went down. It was actually in the

basement level of the building, so you had

to go down some stairs and then open the

door and the whole place was crowded. It

was completely packed. There was hardly

any room to move. And it was so noisy.

There were so many people talking, and

there was televisions with football

going on. And I went in, and as

soon as I entered, this Japanese guy came

up to me, the waiter, and he asked me if I

had a reservation. I said no, I was just

looking for a friend. And I went

up to the bar, I looked around, I was

trying to look for where this event was

taking place. I couldn't tell because I

was in this pub and there was just loads

of people. I couldn't tell which people

were from the event. And I went up to the

bar and I looked around and there was this

group of foreign guys. They looked kind of

Western and they were speaking in English,

and I kind of guessed that that was him.

I saw his picture, the model— no, the

event organizer. So I knew it was him,

and I stood next to them just listening to

what they were talking about. And after

about a minute, the waiter told me that I

wasn't allowed to just stand by the bar

because I was in the way. And I didn't

know where to go. There were no seats

available. There was no, like, open

spaces. I was just standing there in this

crowd of people, and I panicked.

I felt so uncomfortable and anxious. I

panicked and I just walked straight back

out. I literally walked into the pub,

looked around for a minute, and then

walked back out. It was so embarrassing.

I didn't— I couldn't— I didn't even have

the guts to introduce myself to the event

organizer, that guy, or— I just couldn't

do it. I couldn't go up to that group of

people and say, hey, I'm Daniel. I didn't

even know what I was supposed to say.

Hey, I'm here for the event on Meetup.

It would have been so awkward, so I just

decided to walk straight out. I felt so

relieved to be out of that place. I really

hate loud, noisy places. I can't have a

conversation with someone in such a noisy

environment. I can't. I find it difficult

to hear people when there's so much noise

in the background, and I find it difficult

to speak to people because I don't really

have a very powerful voice, and I feel

like I have to put a lot of energy into

making my voice sound loud. I felt so

depressed, I felt so rejected, I felt so

embarrassed. All these negative emotions

were going through me, but I also felt

really relieved and happy that I got

myself out of that horrible place. It was

horrible. It was this tiny cramped bar

packed full of people talking, and I

knew no one there. I was alone. I didn't

have the courage to approach people and

start talking. I felt completely out of

place, and I just, I couldn't handle it.

For a few minutes, I actually thought

about going back in. I thought about,

should I go back in, try it again? Give

myself a few minutes to calm down a bit.

I did come all this way. It would be a

waste to just go home. But I decided not

to go back in. I started heading back to

the train station, and then the karaoke

sign caught my eye. And I've always wanted

to go to karaoke by myself, but I've never

had the confidence to walk into the

building alone. And when you go to

karaoke, it seemed very complicated. They

give you like this laminated piece of

paper and they ask you to choose a course.

Like there's free time and happy time and

all-you-can-drink. There's all these

different courses that you have to choose

from, and it always seemed really

complicated. Whenever I went to karaoke

before, I always went with a group of

people, and the Japanese people always

sorted all that out. They always decided

which course we were going to do. But for

some reason, I felt really drawn to the

karaoke. I felt like I was being pulled

into the building by some kind of

invisible force. I just walked straight

in, went up to the counter. You don't even

have to say anything. The person behind

there just hands you this piece of paper.

All you do is you fill out your name,

your age, how many hours you want to sing,

and that was it. And then you go and sit

down and you wait for them to call your

name. It's funny because for all the other

customers, they would call out the name,

the Japanese people's names, but I had

wrote my name down in English as Daniel

and And I'm not sure if they didn't know

how to pronounce it or maybe they couldn't

read it. But when it came to my name,

they didn't call out my name. They walked

up to me and they told me face to face

that my room was ready and I could go up.

I felt like that was really good service.

I was sitting there the whole time waiting

for them and I was wondering, are they

gonna call out my name? It would be really

weird for a Japanese person to just

suddenly call out a foreign name. I didn't

realize that when you go in there, you had

to write down your name. I didn't realize

that they were going to call out my name.

I thought I'd just go in there and then go

straight up to a karaoke room, but they

were very busy and there was a lot of

people waiting. With all the other

customers, they would call out the

customer's surname. They wouldn't address

a customer by their first name. That would

be really rude and inappropriate. I had

only written my first name on the piece of

paper. So I was really curious as to how

they were going to handle the situation.

I kept watching the 2 women behind the

counter. They were holding the paper and

they were like discussing things between

each other, and I was wondering, are they,

are they trying to figure out how to call

me? After a few minutes, one of them

walked over to me and she told me in

Japanese that my room was ready, and I

went up and I felt so proud of myself.

For such a long time, I had wanted to go

to karaoke by myself, and I didn't have

the confidence to do it. But that day I

managed to do it, and I felt, I felt

great. I felt so happy. I sang for about 2

hours. It was so much fun. It was such a

great way of relieving stress. This is one

of the things I love most about Japan,

being able to go to karaoke. And they had

all the songs that I really wanted to

sing. They had all almost all the songs

from My Chemical Romance, which was kind

of surprising. I sang all of those, I sang

Queen, I sang a bunch of other stuff. It

really turned my mood around. I felt so

depressed after failing to do the meetup

thing and having to walk out, but then I

felt like I had this sense of

accomplishment and I was finally doing

karaoke by myself because I hate going to

karaoke with a huge group of people. If

you go with like a group of 5 or 10

people, you have to wait ages until you

can sing. You can sing maybe twice in an

hour, and even when you're singing, no

one's listening. They're all talking and

chatting and trying to find out what kind

of song they're going to sing when it's

their turn, and it's so boring. You get to

sing like 5 times over a 5-hour period.

Also, it's really embarrassing and

nerve-wracking having to stand up in front

of a group of people and sing. But when

you go by yourself, you can sing as much

as you want. You don't have to wait for

people. You don't have to feel embarrassed

or nervous. That's the great thing about

karaoke. You can go in there in a terrible

mood, feeling depressed and upset, and you

just put on your favorite songs, jump

around, sing and scream, and it's such a

great way of relieving stress. It turns

your mood around completely. So what

could have been a really depressing and

negative day, I managed to turn that all

around at the end by going to karaoke.

I felt, I felt great afterwards. I felt

amazing. I didn't feel down or depressed

at all. I just completely forgot about the

whole meetup failure. I must have went to

karaoke by myself 4 or 5 times again while

I was in Japan last year, and it felt so

liberating. It felt like I don't need

friends to have fun. It felt great. So

that was my little embarrassing meetup

story. I'm gonna make dinner now.

Bye.