“Money’s important to me. I have high standards.”

(16-minute read)

Earlier this year I went to Guam for a weekend to free my head from various frustrations. On the flight back to Japan, I was sitting in an aisle seat studying kanji, and an attractive Japanese woman in her late-30s in the adjacent aisle seat looked over and said to me, “Oh you’re studying kanji! That’s great!” We started talking in a mix of Japanese and English.

She said she had lived in the United States for ten years teaching Japanese but had just moved back to Japan because of difficulties maintaining her US visa. She was visiting Guam because her ex-boyfriend lived there and they had been vacillating as far as whether to continue their relationship. She said it was over between them.

I was attracted to her, and because she was a Japanese teacher and in the midst of telling me she was single, this was a fortuitous encounter. After the flight, we exchanged contacts.

We went on a couple of dates together, and on the second date, she told me that because I hold a medical degree, there was no reason for me to be in Japan and that I should go work in a hospital in America. I told her I wasn’t interested in that. Had that been something I wanted to do, I wouldn’t have moved to Japan. I said there was a zero-percent chance I would go on to practice any form of medicine.

She seemed disappointed, but I didn’t think too much of it. My impression was that she most likely viewed it similar to the way my family and some of my friends did, which was that I was throwing away my potential for doing something “worthwhile” with my life. But either way, I wasn’t really interested in getting into a heavy conversation about it at that particular moment.

We went to some yakitori place. She told me she wanted to move back to the United States. I told her I had no interest in ever living in the US again.

While we were eating at the counter, we were chatting with the chefs in Japanese. I made light jokes, telling them that she and I were incompatible because I wanted to stay in Japan and build my language skills, while she wanted to move back to the US and use her English. In reality, that was the truth.

After that date, despite our difference in goals, I was still attracted to her and wanted to learn a bit more about her.

But she wasn’t interested. I could tell through our texts she wasn’t. She was “busy” the next one or two times I attempted to hang out.

I hadn’t really analyzed it prior, but it sort of slowly occurred to me that even though I would text and speak to her in Japanese, she would usually text and speak back to me in English.

I decided to switch gears and started texting her exclusively in English.

I asked what about a guy turns her on. She said doctors, the army, and big muscles. She told me, once again, that I should move to the US and be a doctor.

After I sent her that pic, she became more interested.

In order to further discern what her thoughts and intentions were. I said, “Well you know there’s no way I would date you if you’re just after me for my career and money.”

In reality, I don’t have a lot of money, and she knew I wasn’t a practicing doctor, but I said it anyway because I was curious as to what kind of response it would elicit.

I said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her response was, “Yesss, you should be a doctor. I really like that.”

I decided to roll with it. I began back-pedaling and pretending that I was now slightly less conclusive about not wanting to live in the States to practice medicine. I said I actually didn’t know how much longer I’d be in Japan and that the two of us should move to the States together where she can live in my “big house” while I’m a practicing surgeon (an obvious joke from my end).

She agreed to meet up again.

When we met up for our third date, I made sure to be straight from the gym, wearing a fitted shirt and my army cargo shorts, and I spoke to her the whole evening exclusively in English.

I talked up the idea of leaving Japan and going to the United States to be a rich surgeon, and she could live in my big house.

She came back to my place and slept with me.

Now the thing is, I completely understand that some people have various criteria that they want met when they start dating someone, but I just couldn’t get past how obvious she made it that she wasn’t into me whatsoever apart from the idea that I could offer her English, US residence, a “big house,” and the supposed status of being with a surgeon.

I continued rolling with her superficial prerequisites for a relationship because the bedroom aspects of our interaction were good, and I felt that if she began generating an emotional connection for me then she would loosen up and not ultimately care about those things anymore.

Because she was in her late-30s, I didn’t want to waste her time, so after sleeping with her a few times, when we were out at dinner one night, I asked if she wanted children.

She told me, “I’m desperate. I really want children but don’t have much time left. If my conditions aren’t met, I don’t want them though.”

I made an obvious, over-the-top joke and said, “If what conditions aren’t met? You have to marry a rich doctor in the United States, where you can live in a big house, have a nice car, and speak English?”

She then smiled in such a way that I could see, with unequivocal lucidity, that she was serious, and said:

“Money’s important to me. I have high standards.”

Here you had this woman, in her late-30s and still single, talking about how she was “desperate” to have kids, yet meanwhile she wouldn’t ever have any because she was too caught up in her own superficial criteria of what she believed were “high standards.”

She refused to be with someone who didn’t fulfill her requirements for money and career, probably to satisfy her perception of ideal biologic support, but in reality, it was actually to her biologic detriment. If she couldn’t have a rich family, she wasn’t going to have one at all.

By all means, no one is to judge what dating criteria are genuinely necessary for any one person except for that person him or herself, so my dislike/disagreement for her conditions and values was, truthfully, not relevant.

She was lower status in my eyes for believing money and career were somehow so integral to “high standards.” Those were the two biggest things I had abdicated by moving to Japan, as I didn’t see them as important in life, so I viewed her outlook on existence as completely devoid of depth.

The extent to which I viewed her as unattractive for thinking those things were important was the same degree to which she found me unattractive following our second date, when I told her I had no interest in those things.

I didn’t blame her for her way of thinking. I asked her general questions about her parents and could gauge they had likely imbued those values into her as important. They believed that for their daughter to be “happy,” she needed to have that type of life. And her parents had probably received that message from their own parents. So the chain continued.

After all, my family is the exact same way. The difference is I broke the chain. My family still doesn’t get it, and probably never will. I’ve stopped caring.

After that night, she began discussing her thoughts as far as us taking vacations together across Japan. I had no interest.

When I thought of her, the only thing that came into my mind was her smile, followed by, “Money’s important to me. I have high standards.”

So how did I start pushing her away? By just being myself and speaking the complete truth.

I started texting her in Japanese telling her that I was stressed out because I really wanted to improve my communication skills but didn’t get as much practice as I wanted. She told me it wasn’t a big deal and not to worry about it. But I told her it was important to me and that I really wanted to improve my Japanese. I also told her I wanted to stay in Japan longer and didn’t want to leave before hitting proficiency.

She was basically like, “そっか, or sokka,” which means “really…” or “I see…”

She wasn’t interested in my goals. She didn’t care that I had aspirations to learn Japanese. She saw my interests as antagonistic to her own. As far as she was concerned, the only thing my words meant to her was: “I’m not going to be your English-speaking, rich doctor who will buy you a large house to live in.” I was aware what I was saying was a turn-off to her. I didn’t care.

A short time later, she said she needed an umbrella she had forgotten at my place because it was actually her sister’s.

She said I could bring it to her in the city.

Now I knew right away she didn’t plan on coming back to my place after meeting up, because if she had been planning to, why in the world would she inconvenience me into bringing the umbrella out to the city. She could easily retrieve it from my place after coming back with me.

I definitely wasn’t going to be her umbrella delivery guy.

Although I wasn’t interested in her anymore, I thought it wouldn’t be the end of the world to sleep with her one last time. I told her she could get it at my place.

She texted saying she’d be arriving in 45 minutes at my train stop. She told me to bring the umbrella with me to the station.

Despite her text, my plan was to “forget” the umbrella at my place so that the two of us could walk back there together.

She then texted me a few minutes before she arrived, saying once again, “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Please don’t forget to the bring the umbrella to the station with you.”

I joked with her and replied, “Wow, this must be one very important umbrella.”

She said, “Yes, it’s my sister’s. Please don’t forget to bring it to the station with you.”

I was thinking (but didn’t reply with), “Yes, we get it, you’ve made your point about wanting me to physically bring the umbrella to the station. Thank you for stating that three times just in case.”

In my mind, our interaction wasn’t going anywhere anyway, but I resented that she too now felt that way strictly because I had communicated the truth about my goals. And in turn, she now didn’t want to sleep with me either, strictly for that reason.

If I wasn’t going to be the English-speaking, rich doctor in the States she was looking for, she wasn’t interested in me, as a person or sexually. It was either that Mike or no Mike at all.

She texted me saying she arrived. She said, “Please bring the umbrella and come into the station.”

That’s the fourth time she said it.

Once again, “Yes, we get it, you’re not interested in coming to my place. Thank you for the reinforcement.”

I took the umbrella with me to the station. I walked down the stairs to where the electronic turnstiles were. She hadn’t exited and was standing on the other side.

As I approached the turnstiles, I didn’t even make eye contact with her. I just handed her the umbrella and turned around and walked away. I didn’t look back.

I thought to myself, “Take your fucking umbrella.”

I never heard from her again after that. The lack of subsequent communication from either of us reflected the tenuousness of the interaction. There was never anything there to begin with.

She wasn’t looking for a relationship with me. She was looking for a relationship with English, a big house, a car, and the idea of an occupation.

We all have conditions we put on a relationship whether we consciously realize it or not. Maybe you wouldn’t date someone who doesn’t have decent teeth. Maybe you wouldn’t date someone who isn’t of the same religious faith as you. Regardless as to how superficial or meaningful you believe the requirements are, we all have them.

A woman doesn’t have to be interested in me for any number of reasons. I’m not entitled to every woman’s interest. If she’s not interested in me for who I am, that’s her issue, not mine.

Rarely in life will you encounter a woman who swings between on and off states so drastically based merely on the aspirations you communicate.

With all of the women I’ve courted and dated, I write about this example because it stands out to me as probably one of the most clear-cut, conspicuous ones of when I had to stop seeing a girl because of how superficial I perceived her to be. In addition (and as I already said), I probably resented her for not actually liking me as a person, despite the fact that she had hung out with me several times and had a chance to get to know me.

If you meet a woman where you feel her conditions for the relationship rely on you being someone other than yourself, she’s not someone you should date.

She can take her umbrella and vanish forever.

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