I was new to the online dating scene and a little hesitant at first. Two of my single western guy friends suggested online dating – as long as I wasn’t looking for anything serious. The courtship process in Japan puzzled me. After wasting months subtly pursuing a guy at work only to discover he had a girlfriend, I quit the Japanese way – and bento making, also described by my friends as a boyfriend magnet in Japan. From what I gathered from my Japanese girlfriends, it seemed to involve a lot of passiveness, indirect communication, text messaging, misunderstandings and patience. I could sometimes detect a flicker of interest, at most, before they ran away. I did find Japanese guys very attractive, but they would never approach me, being notoriously shy around foreign women. Most western men I met were either gay, in a relationship or only interested in Japanese women. When I moved to Japan about five years ago, I quickly realized that finding love in this country was not going to be an easy task.