A reporter in his 40s sneaked into a “married couples party” at a hotel in Shinjuku, where men and women looking for a “second partner” gather.
There is such a thing as a “married couples’ party,” which is a party for married couples only. The main type of parties where men and women get together in real life are those that target singles, such as “machicon,” but this is a version for married couples. Although these parties had been on the wane after the COVID-19 crisis, they have become popular again since the end of the COVID-19 crisis.
Currently, “matching apps” are the mainstream for meeting men and women. For married couples, “matching apps exclusively for married couples” have been rapidly expanding over the past two to three years. The advantage of going out of one’s way to meet people in real life must be diminishing. And married couples risk having their faces seen by a large number of people.
Despite this, “married couples parties” are held every day in central Tokyo, such as Shinjuku and Ginza, and it seems that all of the men’s parties are almost always full. If it is so popular, this reporter, a married man in his 40s, actually went to one.
The entry fee for men was about 10,000 yen, while the fee for women was about 1,500 yen, a significant difference. In some cases, perhaps because of the lack of female participants, women are offered free of charge. In addition, the age range of participants is divided by each party, such as 30-50 years old, and there seem to be some targeted patterns, such as “high-income only. In addition, perhaps because “age fraud” is common at these meetings, IDs are checked at the time of admission.
I decided to sneak into a blind date party at a certain hotel in Shinjuku’s West Exit that targeted a relatively broad range of 50 people, from 30 to 60 years old. The time was two hours, from 19:00 to 21:00.
At the reception desk, I was given a group number. At first, we seemed to sit in our assigned seats. I was in a group of 10 people, 5 men and 5 women, in their 30s to mid 40s.
