lol sorry for not posting here for a while
i've been mostly following a solid routine of waking up early, going to the gym, and eating my calories. admittedly there were a few days where i fucked up and i'm still not 100% of where i want to be mental-health wise but it's on an obvious upward trajectory.
i'll post random/potentially notable(?) things that happened in the past 10 days
brotha from anotha motha
https://www.instagram.com/stallone.riju/
this guy literally has the same complexion as i do, and is also the same height as i am. so i am basically going to just copy him for style, and i know what i should be ultimately be aiming for body wise as well
https://streamable.com/w1qddh
(i shaved the pube-ass facial hair later lol)
i had found out about this guy about 3-4 weeks ago actually during my investigation of "how do i market myself to japanese girls"
liquid catharsis display
there was one day where i had just come back from the gym around 4pm. i had bought the remainder of my calories for the rest of the day and i had a list of things to do for the remainder of the day.
but i just came home, sat on the computer, and binged youtube videos. didn't even take a shower, just sat there in filth watching
english youtube. i got hungry too, yet i didn't eat anything for the rest of the day. just like a heroin addict in the street, filthy and hungry.
i've written here all the tricks and methods i usually have to refocus, but i basically just thought "i was okay and i was too good for them"...while continuing to binge.
it became 1am and i was basically pissed that i had wasted the whole day. literally nearly every day up until this point i had been doing everything right, and being on top of my shit, so much to the point that i thought i didn't even need to log my todo lists on the forum. but i started slipping.
FUCK!
i slammed my laptop lid down and was about to head off to bed
....
i slammed my laptop lid down....
....
i slammed....
....
wait why isnt it closed lol....
https://streamable.com/ch6049
apparently my usb hub was resting on top of my keyboard and i didn't notice it in the dark, so i basically had slammed the screen onto it. lol!!!!!!!!
after i finish writing this post, i'm going to turn this laptop into the repair shop and go sans computer again for a while. yet another japanese language practice opportunity!
rebound
that was basically the visceral wakeup call i needed.
i mentally masturbated myself and crystallized beliefs that i'm not attractive enough for japan, and therefore i don't have to go out and do anything. granted i have been going to the gym and bulking, but any retard can go to the gym
i made a real effort to actually go and look at how i can make friends. there are foreigner/cultural exchange type groups on the meetup app but i want to interact with japanese people in their natural habitat (meetup is basically only known by people who care a lot about foreign social media).
there's the japanese equivalent of craigslist
jmty, and i met some guy who wanted to go to a curry restaurant with someone. i told him am actually indian and i know an almost-authentic indian curry place (ok the story of why i know that is interesting in itself, but in short, i met up with some guy who claimed he wanted to practice english for his exam, but instead wanted to recruit me for his bizarre jehovah's witness-esque buddhist cult).
anyway, so we met up for curry and then he was asking me what my goal on jmty was. i said that i'm trying to look for meetup groups and friends with common interests, especially lifting. he told me he's part of this "working adult community" (社会人コミュニティ for lack of a better translation lol) and there were going to be like 30 people meeting up at a bar the next evening. BINGO!
the inner sanctum
i show up, and literally after saying precisely zero words to people (rough english equivalents lol):
"holy shit you're jacked!"
"you've really been pumping those muscles"
"what do i have to eat to look like that"
"how much do you bench?"
"handsome man!"
literally i made eye contact with people and they would start feeling my biceps.
i'm about 158lbs which is the biggest i've ever been, and i have lower body fat than i did when i was 155 about a year ago (since i had cut down to 143 and bulked back up). also i've been drinking 2L of water every day. thanks MakingAComeback
i would be talking with some people, and other people would join just to comment on my physique
then, to further boost my status, they had a darts contest and i owned the shit out of it by getting 2 bullseyes out of 3 shots. so then people were coming up to me like "damn you're good at darts!!!!"
usually when i go to japanese meetups, the most notable thing about me is that i'm a "foreigner" and my "japanese is so good".
i actually got zero of those comments until maybe a couple towards the end of the meetup. but this was the first time i wasn't "the foreigner", i was actually "the jacked guy"
being american/indian/whatever was like a footnote, even in a society as homogenous as japan. even after they knew i was clearly from america, most people were more interested in how i got jacked rather than anything about america.
as i was leaving people were like "please come again!!!!", and i headed home.
i sent a voice message to troy to debrief. after 4 hours of active japanese conversation, never has sending a 6 minute voice message in english felt so cathartic in my life.
reflection
i did some other things recently as well including
- playing around with some of the japanese dating apps, but they all require japanese ID verification, and foreigner passports/american ID doesn't count. so that will have to wait until i return to japan. but i was actually getting some messages and replies (that i couldn't actually read due to said ID verification requirements)
- doing a boxing lesson in japan and paying the entrance fee to commit to it
- teaching my friend who took me to hokkaido how to workout and doing a full-body program with him
- going to a batting cage on a whim with a friend and figuring out how to hit 90mph fastballs
- going to a movie theater and watching a japanese movie
- going to this working adult community's "introductory seminar". i'll explain it later because i want to research more about it. but from what i understand, japan seems to have these communities that aren't just casual meetup groups, but full on life planning/life advice organizations that organize both events like barbecues and vacations, in addition to having advisors who can guide your career path and give investment advice. they're basically religions but instead of the religion, it's focused around people who want to make money and have a satisfying life lol. kind of like bringing back the social life + life advice services aspect from universities but for people who already graduated college i guess? lol
i understood most of what was happening at the beginning, but admittedly listening to some guy talk about "how is anyone supposed to enjoy life when their salary is so low" for a whole hour drained my focus bar and my comprehension waned as the seminar continued. basically i went from 70-80% comprehension to 30-50% to 0-10% over 3 hours and started falling asleep lol.
most of the comments and attention i got was male attention. i didn't have girls coming up and talking to me, but i think japanese girls are just more passive and shy (which i like anyway lol).
but this was an invaluable experience, because now i know how people perceive me, and it's overwhemingly positive.
i don't know how to capitalize on the attention, and my social battery drains even quicker in japanese because i have to actually concentrate to understand what people are saying. it's not like english where i just unconsciously hear "english noises", automatically understand the meaning, and then branch off and think about every possible nuance and context that the meaning could have been in. japanese is more like
- not paying attention = noise
- paying attention = depending on the context, i'll understand what's being said at face value
luckily, the meditation has helped with my focus but admittedly i haven't been meditating as much as i was a month ago. focus is paramount for doing anything in japanese.
and i was basically 0% proactive in leading or keeping any conversations going. the most i did was exchange with some girl who mentioned she wants to try the indian place i took my other friend. otherwise, i basically only talked to other guys lol. there was this chick with HUGE TITTIES!!!!!!!!!!! and was hyper short and wearing high heels and i was just like HHGGNGAHGAHGANGJGEIFSHDKFJEGDASFLASLFGJIR.
admittedly i'm like that in english too though. i only talk a lot (and i really do talk a LOT!!!) if i'm "absolutely sure the other person is going to understand what i'm going to say", and it's usually just about my own life stories. i haven't learned how to have conversations in a way where it's mutually beneficial like an adult, and that's basically paramount for dating and talking to girls (which is basically trying to get them to want to talk to you about themselves and open up).
basically now there's no doubt that i'm initially seen as attractive and that i can get my foot in the door (at least irl), but i have no idea how to actually capitalize on it.
also, in retrospect, binging japanese youtube for at least half of the time i've been here in japan has actually massively helped. i'm catching myself understanding things i couldn't understand even 2 months ago, unconsciously using new phrases and speaking in new ways i hadn't before. my perception of the language has actually changed, but there's still a long way to go.
this is going to be an interesting challenge in that not only do i have to "finally address the fact that my social age is 7", i have to also do it in japanese lol. so i have an exciting blank slate here.
ultimately i have to
experience as many things in japanese as possible.
make profiles on all of the main japanese dating apps (tinder, with, tapple, pairs, bumble (using japanese phone))
evening checklist:
morning checklist:
social KING 