PJ#18: The Rules
Here are the rules. Learned, in most cases, by breaking them.
PJ#17: Rei, or The First Time I Said No
For two months the app had been a thing that happened to me. Rei was the first woman I turned down, and I was surprisingly bad at it.
PJ#16: Kei, or Judge Me at the Coffee
Nineteen years old, negotiated me up two before we'd met, refused to send a photo, and then left the app before I could find out whether any of it was justified.
PJ#15: The Thing You Take
There's a subject men of my age don't write about, and I've been circling it for fourteen entries. Here it is.
PJ#14: Yura, or The Workout After Dinner
The best night I've had on the app came with an own goal, a supply problem, and a woman heading home to Shimane two days later for three months.
PJ#13: Rii, or The Sprint
The second or third coffee I ever had on the app ended with a woman crossing a road at something close to a run.
PJ#12: The Framing Message, or Four Replies and a Silence
A few days before a first dinner, I send the same general message to everyone. This is what came back from four women over a week.
PJ#11: Yuuka, or Little By Little
Her first message to me contained the word 徐々に, gradually, and I've spent three dinners honouring it.
PJ#10: Risa, or The One Who'd Done It Before
Most profiles on the app are weeks old. Risa's was three years old, and that turned out to be the interesting part.
PJ#9: Kurumi or The Quiet Upgrade
Some women arrive on the Board with a bang. Kurumi arrived with an apology for being five minutes late, and has been quietly outperforming the bang ever since.
PJ#8: Miho, or An Hour's Notice
Most of the women on the app take a week to agree to a coffee. Miho took a message: I'm free in an hour if you're anywhere near Shinjuku.
PJ#7: Shiina and Saki, or Two Empty Chairs
Two of the best coffees I've had on the app ended the same way: a booked table, a chair nobody sat in, and a message that stayed unread.
PJ#6: Hina, or The First Yes
After Aya, Noa and Momone, I had some guidelines and rules, a much better first message, and no evidence that any of it worked. Hina was the evidence.
PJ#5: Momone, or The Sequel
I'd like to tell you I learned from Noa. I did. I learned slowly, which is a different thing.
PJ#4: Reading the Board
So, a bit of a confession. I work in IT. I manage huge projects for a living, usually for commercial teams selling things.
PJ#3: Noa, or Three Dinners & Chocolate
Noa was twenty, worked in a bar, and was – I want to be precise about this – the kind of pretty that makes other people in the restaurant slightly worse at their jobs.
PJ#2: Aya – What I Did Wrong the First Time
Aya was the first woman I met on the app, and I approached the whole thing with the confidence of a man who has never done it and the knowledge of one who never will.
PJ#1: What is papa-katsu?
Patronage is not a new idea. Men with money have been supporting women without it, in exchange for company of varying warmth, since roughly the invention of money. Japan just kept better records.
About Bristol Papa
Bristol Papa. British, 62, from a city known mostly for a bridge and a cider. I came to Nagoya for a couple of years in the nineties and forgot to leave.
Bristol Papa
A man from Bristol navigates Japan's papa-katsu world