Exploring Aisekiya: A Solo Solution to Matching App Fatigue, An In-Depth Investigation by a Midosar Report

Matching apps are now the mainstream way for singles to find a girlfriend. However, it is a world of survival of the fittest for men, where only a few good-looking men will even meet. In addition, there are many cases of cancellations and photo fraud, making it difficult to find a good match, and by the time you reach your mid-30s, there are no matches to begin with.

On the other hand, realistic encounters can be found at machicon and omiai parties. Aisekiya is a popular place to meet people in recent years.

Many people may imagine a scene where several young men and women are making a lot of noise. Basically, two or more people are required to enter a regular Aisekiya. In many cases, men are met with a curt attitude and conversation is not possible when they try to talk to each other. This makes it difficult for those who are looking for a serious encounter to use these services.

The restaurant we visited this time is called a “one-person sharing house,” where one person can enter by himself. No meals are served, and all-you-can-drink policy, including alcohol, is in place to prevent girls from becoming “me-shimoku”.

This restaurant opened in 1919 and now has a total of seven outlets: five in Tokyo and one each in Kanagawa and Osaka. While people are reluctant to eat and drink in groups at Corona, the 1:1 format seems to have been popular and the number of customers has been steadily increasing. On weekends, many of the restaurants are packed to capacity.

To enter a restaurant, you need to register as a member in advance using a dedicated application. Uploading your ID is required, and you cannot lie about your age. After registering as a member, I entered the Ikebukuro store at around 7:00 p.m. on a weekday.

Entering the store

The time and fee for sharing a table with one woman is 2,750 yen per 20 minutes, with a higher rate of 3,300 yen on weekends. There is no charge for time not spent with a partner, and all-you-can-drink drinks are free. There is no charge for women.

After registering, I was shown to my room. The room was moderately dimly lit and had a relaxed atmosphere, like a stylish bar, with a large sofa and table that could accommodate three or four people, and a wall separating it from the room next door. It is a private room where you cannot hear each other’s voices clearly.

The first one, “Subtle Arabian Woman.”

The app allows you to check the number of people entering the store in real time. There seemed to be a good number of visitors that day, but after waiting for about 20 minutes, the first woman finally arrived.

I could tell from a quick glance that she was older than I was. She had a short cut and was not very attractive. When you sit down with a partner, you can check the other person’s information on the application. You can find out their name (nickname) and age without having to ask them directly. I found out that he was 41 years old, and since I only had 20 minutes to talk with him, we started talking right away.

When I asked him, “Are you back from work today?Yes, I’m a freelance teacher who teaches children how to study online. What kind of work do you do? The conversation proceeded to focus on work, such as “What type of work do you do?

I wanted to have a more casual conversation with her since we had limited time, but I was not excited because it was the first time, and no questions came to mind. She seemed to like to talk and kept talking about her work, but I could hardly get into her head.

With about 5 minutes left, I thought, “I’m not going to get much out of this,” so I asked , “Have you been to any other stores? ” I asked him half-heartedly, “Have you been to any other stores? He said, “I’ve been to Shinjuku, but there are a lot of young people there. I guess there are a lot of people in their twenties there. I wondered if Ikebukuro would have demand even for people in their 20s.

In the meantime, the 20-minute talk was over. After the talk, we rated each other on a 5-point scale using the app. If there were no problems, a score of 5 was given. If the score of 1 or 2 continues more than once, they will refuse to let you in. If you look bored, you will receive a low score. You have to make the conversation as enjoyable as possible.

Also, you can exchange messages within the app with the person you have met for one week from that day. This is useful if you are unable to ask for a LINE line during the meeting. I did not exchange messages with this woman, but you can check her out at …….

It seems that the women with whom you have a date are not completely random, but are decided by the staff, taking into account the age of the man and the woman’s wishes to a certain extent. Since I am in my mid-30s, I was probably set up with a woman in her 40s.

I decided to use the VIP room system because I wanted to talk to a younger woman. For an additional 1,100 yen to the regular fee, you can specify the age of the woman you want to sit with. Since the room was just available, I asked the staff if I could use the system and requested that the woman be no older than 35 years old.

The second “high-flying foreign IT worker.”

We moved to the VIP room and a woman arrived within 5 minutes. She seemed to have a higher priority in our shared seats. I checked her age on the app and found that she was 30 years old.

She was sitting near the entrance at a considerable distance from me, and I thought we were going to start talking right away. She was holding the handle of her bag tightly and looked as if she wanted to leave immediately. I thought, “This is not a good time to start a conversation,” but I didn’t have time to hesitate, so I started a conversation.

I asked, “Are you on your way home from work?” I asked, ” No, I’m home, so I came from home.

I like your freedom. What kind of company is it? He answered quickly, without making eye contact with me .

The conversation was not very lively in general, and it was very difficult to talk to him. He seems to work for a major company that occasionally goes on overseas business trips, so he must be “excellent” at his job.

I tried to start a conversation about men and women, such as, “What kind of person is your type? I asked her what kind of man or woman she was interested in. She said, “I’ ve only dated younger men. …… I understood why she sat so far away from me. She seemed to have lost her motivation the moment she saw my age.

She seemed to know a lot of information about other restaurants, so I guessed she was a regular . If we were in the same industry or something like that, we would go out and have a drink,” she told me matter-of-factly. In other words, if there was a high-level younger man who matched her, she would be happy to have him as a partner.

It is fine to have a desired age and type of work, but it is troubling to have such a blatant attitude. However, I would have been annoyed if they gave me a low evaluation, so I endured the pain and continued listening to them with a smile. I decided to give him a score of 4 because I didn’t think he deserved a score of 5. Looking back, I think a score of 2 would have been fine.

Third “office office worker who got excited about a common topic.”

The cold attitude of the foreign IT person had sapped my spirit, but I couldn’t leave at this point. I decided to sit with one more person. She was 26 years old, a kind-looking office worker, and although I was afraid of her because she was 10 years older than me, she smiled at me and started talking to me.

She asked me, “Where are you from? I answered, “I’m from Fukuoka,” to which she replied, “I see, I went to a hot spring called XX by myself the other day. Since it was my hometown, I said, “Oh, did you go to XX? Since it was in my hometown, we started talking about our hometowns from the beginning.

After that, we talked about what she does on her days off, her hobbies, etc., and 20 minutes passed.

She had just arrived, so she said she would stay at the store a little longer. I was surprised at how quickly time flies when you are having a good time. She kept talking to me until the staff told me it was time to move on.

I thought she was a nice person, but the conversation was so lively that I failed to ask her for her contact information. I tried sending her a message later in the app, but never received a reply. ……

Taipa is good in that you can always go to a store and talk 1:1 with a woman, and if you are in your 20s and have a certain level of communication skills and cleanliness, there seems to be a good chance of getting a good meeting. But if you are in your mid-30s or older, like me, you may need to wait and …… hope that a man of that age will be able to sit with a woman he likes.

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