Mock Dates Feel Like an Interrogation and Gripes — 50-something Male Reporter: “Appearance is Important in Finding a Partner”

Men, especially in their 40s and 50s, don’t have a lot of opportunities to have people outside the home tell them what they look like, so they don’t know how they look to the opposite sex. So they don’t even know how they look from the opposite sex’s point of view. I try to verbalize and communicate the things that people around me have a hard time saying.

Makiko Shimotori, a stylist and instructor in the “Self Improvement Learning” program offered by O-Net, a major marriage agency, to its members, says, “I try to verbalize the parts of myself that people around me have a hard time expressing. When we met for this interview, the first thing Ms. Shimotori said to me was, “Marriage is becoming more difficult.

Marriage is becoming more and more difficult. Even if you join a marriage agency or register on an app, you can’t find a match. In my case, I’ve been registering with apps since I was in my thirties, but I’ve either not been able to find a match at all, or I’ve gotten fed up with the pattern of not being able to find a match after just one meeting, so I quit the app. When we asked him about it, he told us that many men and women have similar problems at Aunet. Naho Katsuki, a member of Aunet’s Service Planning Department, says

There are many times when people are troubled or stumped in their marriage activities. In fact, there are fewer people who go smoothly. In today’s world, you must be in love in order to get married. It only works if you like each other, so the hurdles are higher than they used to be.”

In marriage activity, he says, it is necessary to “become the one who is chosen. In order to be “chosen” out of dozens or hundreds of members, you need to improve yourself. The “Self Improvement Learning” service, which started in June, is designed to solve the problems and difficulties of marriage activity members in a personalized manner.

“The content is divided into two main categories: first are the free e-learning videos. The first is the free e-learning videos, which are 5 to 10 minutes in length, and there are 11 videos for men and 10 for women. We have received feedback from 90% of those who responded to our survey after viewing the videos, saying that they were useful and that they were able to look back on their own marriage activities. The second is a personal lesson by a professional instructor that can be paid for by those who want to learn more about the subject,” says Katsuki.

Looking at the themes of the videos for men, we see that the most popular themes are “Appearance is also important in marriage activity! What are the points that women like? What are the points that women like? What do women look for in a man?” and “How to send out profiles and messages” are just a few of the interesting titles. I had the opportunity to watch “Marriage Activity is Also About Appearance,” and was told that “appearance is something you are born with and can’t change, but you can change your appearance through hard work. I thought the phrase “women value looks more than appearances” was quite profound.

Members who want to further explore the theme of the video and improve themselves can apply for personal lessons. The most popular face-to-face lessons are “attendant shopping,” in which a professional instructor listens to the woman’s needs and helps her choose clothes, and “mock dates,” in which a professional instructor gives her advice on what to wear on a date. The fee for the face-to-face lesson is 33,000 yen, and the remote lesson is 22,000 yen.

“I’ve seen many members in their 40s and 50s change dramatically just by how they dress. Many companies are working on how to improve their appearance in order to make a good impression in business, so it has a wide range of applications beyond romance,” says Katsuki.

Mr. Katsuki was so enthusiastic in his praise that I decided to take the plunge and actually take a personal lesson at my own expense. This time, I took the ¥55,000 course, which is very popular among Aonet members at the start of their activities and includes a personal color diagnosis, a bone structure diagnosis, attendant shopping, and a mock date.

So I visited Mr. Shimotori’s office, and for some reason, the first thing he started talking about was how to make a self-profile.

He said, “It is important to make sure that your self-profile conveys your message to ‘the person you want to reach. And in order to appeal to that target audience, it is important to know what parts of yourself you should mention.

For example, even if the keyword is visiting shrines and temples as a hobby, there are people who want to enjoy visiting shrines and temples while chatting and people who want to enjoy themselves quietly, so the wording will change depending on which audience you want to reach. Especially for people in their 40s and 50s, unless they have a good match, it is difficult to get along with them because they have already established their own lifestyles.

Mr. Shimotori’s approach is to use styling to express what is lacking in the self-promotion created in this way, or, in some cases, to incorporate parts of the self-promotion that are difficult to show in the styling. This is not just a somewhat cool look that will be accepted by everyone, but rather a coordination that will be “chosen” by the audience.

What kind of coordination will it really be? For more details, please read “Part 2: A 50-something old man’s private lesson to become the one who is loved! Private Lesson” for details.

Part 2: A 50-something old man reporter’s experience “Become the one who is loved! Private Lesson