Mike complaining: Personal issues communicating

Time in Japan:  7:30 p.m.

So I realized today that it’s harder for me to make friends than I thought.  Or maybe that’s not the right way to put it.  When I have really close friends, I’m super relaxed and even intentionally rude toward them, and it’s great for both parties.  No, really, my closest friends and I frequently call each other terrible names and laugh about it because that’s just how my sense of humor works.  On the other hand, if I don’t click with someone, even if I like them well enough and they like me, I don’t really open up at all.  In Japan, this is compounded by the fact that I’m dreadfully afraid of offending people, even though they seem to be understanding and kind.  I’m also very self-conscious of my Japanese and my mistakes in mixing up polite and casual language, because I still rarely know which I should be using in a given situation.  I think it depends not only on lateral position (Japan has a highly stratified hierarchy of older and younger, senior and junior relationships), but also on the person’s personal preference and level of comfort, both of which I find hard to gauge.  In addition, I’m just not used to it.  In America, I speak informally to the majority of people I know, and enjoy doing so.

Getting back to my problems communicating, because of all this, I’m often not sure how to make my personal preferences known, and whether or not it’s okay to do so.  Since I’ve realized that I’m definitely underemphasizing my personal desires, I am going to work toward communicating them more directly, but I still worry a little bit that I’ll go too far.  I guess I might not know until I do.

Another thing I worry about is breaking cultural norms.  I’ve studied up on them of course, but as with polite vs. impolite language, it’s hard for me to know when I can or can’t do certain things.  Also, come to think of it, I’m not sure what anyone thinks of me.

Alright, so I just realized that this entry is really lame, probably annoying, and definitely full of ANGST, so I’m just going to list off some other random complaints that I need to get out of my system and call it an entry so that we can get to something more interesting.

1.  I find myself tempted to use feminine pronouns because I think I’m secretly a little girl inside.

2.  I wish everyone wouldn’t be so nice to me so as to make me feel indebted to them, and on that note:

3.  I feel like I didn’t bring enough souvenirs.

4.  I miss being able to speak English way more than I ever dreamed I would.

5.  I miss ITG.

6.  I miss not passing out and then waking up in the middle of the night.

7.  Overall, my apartment is really clean, but there are certain parts under the sink that are absolutely disgusting, and I’m not really looking forward to cleaning them.

8.  There are things that I feel I should be doing, but don’t have any time to do, and then when I do have time I forget what they are.

9.  I really want to look through the shojo (girls) manga section at the local bookstore, but I know that that’s a cultural no-no.  I might do it anyway.  Also, at least manga is cheap here.

“Yukkuri shiteitte ne” –That stupid song London was always listening to last year, about a million times (Hatsune Miku) (roughly translates to “Take it easy, okay?”)