About Takashi

I think the last time I talked much about Takashi was when he came to visit in May, but since then I've thought about him a lot. We still talk online maybe twice a week through instant messenger. Right now he's up in Hokkaido working with cows. I think his job mostly has to do with feeding them. It sounds like things have been a little rough for him lately; when I ask how he's doing, he generally tells me that he's not doing all that well.

Our conversation style is maybe a little odd. I pretty much always start our conversations, and while Takashi answers my questions, he doesn't volunteer much information on his own. If he were American (or from any other English-speaking country, really) I'd probably assume that he didn't want to talk to me. But up to this point I've pretty much chalked it up to him not liking to talk about himself a lot, or being busy or tired. Still, for a while it had been bothering me and I was starting to worry that he was sick of me and I just couldn't take a hint. I was also getting frustrated because it isn't easy for me to lead a conversation, especially in Japanese, which we mostly use when we instant message each other.

So, after Yosakoi, I was tired and more than a little emotional and decided that things had come to the breaking point. Either something had to change or I just needed to stop talking to Takashi. It was getting too upsetting to try so hard to communicate and get so little in the way of a response. I felt like I was making a fool of myself, talking and talking when maybe he didn't even want to hear from me. So I sent a rather large chunk of text in English (maybe not the nicest thing to do) explaining that I thought the way we talked was strange, and asking if he didn't want to talk to me anymore. I think my frustration was pretty apparent because he responded right away.

Takashi told me that he really did want to talk to me, and apologized repeatedly for making me feel uneasy. He said that it's just hard for him to talk in English. Which seemed irrelevant to me, since we usually use at least as much Japanese as English. But I felt a lot better to hear directly from him that I wasn't pestering him. I think he was sincere in everything he said, and I was a lot happier afterward.

Still, I think I'm going to have to be a little more cautious from now on. I've gotten pretty emotionally attached to Takashi despite the fact that we haven't spent much time together and don't know each other all that well. The fact that I got as upset as I did just shows that I'm more invested in this than I originally intended to be. In that aspect, it could be that what I'm doing is unhealthy. But thinking about Takashi and talking to him now and then makes me feel a lot less lonely. I think that even just the casual contact I have with him has helped me deal with the isolation of living in Kochi. Even though I don't really talk with him about the things I struggle with here, somehow just being able to chat with Takashi about insignificant things makes me feel a lot less alone. Maybe I'm scared to let go of him because he represents the possibility that a Japanese guy would find me worth the trouble of dealing with a significant language barrier. I don't think I'm likely to meet another guy like him, especially not in Kochi.

For a while I had been entertaining the idea of making a trip up to Tokyo on one of my three day weekends in September. Takashi should have moved back from Hokkaido by then, and after my minor meltdown he said that he'd help me and show me around if I came. But now I'm rethinking it. I really would like to see Takashi again, but traveling to Tokyo is expensive and takes a good chunk of time. It probably wouldn't really be worth it to go there when I've only got three days, if I'm being practical. I haven't told Takashi yet, but I'm fairly certain now that I won't go. That being the case, I don't know when or if I'll see him again.