More women enjoying a night out alone

“Over New Year,” a 30-year-old woman tells Shukan Asahi (March 27), “I rented a hotel suite and spent the night there all by myself, drinking wine in a bubble bath and reading a magazine.” She smiles. “Very elegant, don’t you think?”

Very. The key word is “all by myself”—which is how, Shukan Asahi finds, a growing number of women prefer to spend their time. It’s not that they don’t have friends and significant others. It’s that—well, who needs them? Their presence only spoils that certain special atmosphere you can only create in solitude.

Example follows example. A working woman with a 2-year-old daughter has to hire a babysitter anyway, so when she finishes work early, she treats herself to a solitary sushi dinner and then goes out for a drink or two. A 26-year-old Kansai-area freeter penny-pinches her meager earnings as best she can, and then, when she has enough, she treats herself to a first-class restaurant meal. “Once I took the day off and went to Yokohama for a full-course French dinner. At the restaurants I like best,” she says, “I prefer to be alone.”

Doesn’t dining alone feel… well, lonely?

“No way,” she says. “Alone, you can really savor the taste of your food. You can take as much time as you like. With no friend or lover present, you can, for a while, live entirely for yourself.”

Shukan Asahi uses the expression “good at being alone,” as though it were a skill. If it is, more and more women are acquiring it—or maybe they were born with it.

“There are two main reasons,” says Tokyo University professor Chizuko Ueno, author of a book on the subject, “for the proliferation of ‘o-hitori-sama’”—the neologism coined to describe women soloing out on the town. “First, women have stronger social skills than men”—which presumably give them confidence to venture alone into the sort of place where everyone else is matched with somebody. “Secondly, a woman is conventionally expected to adjust her behavior to the mood of her companion. It’s very stressful. No wonder they’ve come to think, ‘It’s more fun alone!’”

A staffer at a karaoke box in Tokyo’s Shibuya has noticed over the past two or three years a growing number of women coming in alone. “Now,” he says, these solitary women “make up 30% of our business.”

One of them is a third-year college student, who explains it this way: “When you’re with other people, you can only sing songs everyone knows, or songs that the others are in the mood for. You end up not singing what you want to sing. To work off the stress that builds up, I’ll come again on another day to sing alone.”

Then there’s the 25-year-old office worker whose idea of the perfect date is to leave her boyfriend at home and go where she wants to go by herself.

“I like the sort of places where people go on dates,” she tells Shukan Asahi. “He hates them. Sometimes he’ll let me drag him along, but it’s always, ‘This is no fun,’ ‘Let’s go home already.’ So I go on dates by myself. I’ll go to a nice place for lunch, then maybe to a planetarium, and then I’ll go to Yokohama for dinner at Chinatown.”

“I have a boyfriend, but to be honest,” says another young woman, putting the essence of the solitary social life in a nutshell,” it’s more fun without him.”

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Latest 15 of 52 Total Comments Show All

Hiashi at 07:57 PM JST - 23rd March

If people, not just women, feel that they can't be themselves and feel that they have to adhere to others well being then good for you for taking some time off to relax and be yourself. But I still find that eventhough it might be quite hard on the job, that being yourself is the best, even if it means singing that song you feel like singing. But Japan is the land where people sometimes seems afraid to stand out and have the need to be polite, eventhough it might be more polite just to be yourself in Karaoke situations. But I really understand the need to be alone if you have a "boring" boyfriend/girlfriend who just keeps on dragging the fun down.
japanyesterday at 08:43 AM JST - 24th March

Hiashi: did you really say japanese seems afraid to stand out. completely the opposite, you walk out on the street for 10 minutes and youll see people trying too hard to stand out or be "unique"
saborichan at 09:39 AM JST - 24th March

Just because they like to dress unique doesn't mean they're able to act uniquely in social situations.
ForeignKiri at 02:37 PM JST - 24th March

I agree to this entirely... there is so much pressure to be accepted under the rules of the group and finding solitude is also peaceful for the mind. Some people discover more when doing by themselves than they do if there with a significant other or a group. ROCK ON ENTERTAINMENT OF SOLITUDE!
seesaw at 06:00 PM JST - 24th March

But I really understand the need to be alone if you have a "boring" boyfriend/girlfriend who just keeps on dragging the fun down.

If you have a 'boring' boyfriend/girlfriend....just break up and find a not boring one...and enjoy the dinner together...I still feel the idea of enjoying/dining alone in expensive places is silly and desperate act.
ca1ic0cat at 05:38 AM JST - 25th March

I dunno, I dine and travel alone on business all the time. I sometimes go out alone on my own when I am home, but I usually don't go to movies or dinner alone if I'm home. Maybe all the travel takes the place of the need for solitude.
timeon at 12:37 PM JST - 25th March

I have a question for the JT readers. I (+ my friends) know/dated many Japanese women, OLs, and most of them have very few friends, make that basically no friends. I mean they have some people to hang around sometimes, and coworkers, but not exactly friends in the sense I'm used to (go out often, talk about all your problems, stand by you in trouble, etc) . Is it just me and the people I hang around with?
IchyaWarFare at 03:19 PM JST - 25th March

timeon-For the most part, I am pretty sure everyone is with you on that. So no, it just is not you, no matter what part of Japan you are in.

My wife used to do all that stuff by herself for a long time. I had to get her out of it and now we do almost everything together. Hell, she is one of the top rated players on Gears of War 2 in Japan for females...not that there is a long list. lol.

But for the most part, she does have Best Friends (BF) but really does not keep in contact with them nor they with her. Not sure how many people have that? I KIT with mine back in Fl, but even being this close, she rather not go see them or whatever. I don't really get it, but as long as she is happy, I am good.
memyselfI at 05:10 PM JST - 25th March

It's kind of **" LONELY FEELING " **if you stayed at a hotel room by yourself. Where's the fun in that ? Pretty soon women will go to love hotels by themselves. Hahahahaha !!!!!
Nessie at 05:31 PM JST - 25th March

More women enjoying a night out alone

The usual lack of specifics. For example, WHICH night?
timeon at 06:01 PM JST - 25th March

IchyaWarFare, from my experience, lack of close friends they can talk their problems with, and the reluctance to talk serious problems with the partner leads to the most problems in a relationship/marriage with a Japanese. It happened to me, it happened to my friends
DJJapan at 11:34 AM JST - 26th March

Timeon- My wife has quite a lot of friends and 3 very close friends and they are also there for here if she or they need each other. But when I think about other females that I know or work with here you are definately right.
ALHQQ at 08:54 PM JST - 6th April

I am a man and I can appreciate this article.
Sarge at 09:11 PM JST - 6th April

"The key word is "all by myself"

Isn't that three words?

And isn't that an Eric Carmen song?
taniwha at 07:47 PM JST - 14th April

I don't believe the fuss here. For as long as I can remember upon arriving in Japan, women friends were sharing rooms together just as a cheap, convenient, and doubtless comfortable source of accommodation when traveling in Japan. Usually love hotels back in the 1990's because they were cheaper by far.

What the heck is the problem of women want to go sleep over in a hotel by themselves? Especially in Japan. Beats having to spend 30 minutes with a male partner while they first get themselves primed with alcohol, then bam into a hotel, let mr smooth get down to business, not a lot of talking, ooops and that's it, then bam back out the door again. And likely all in all in less than 3 hours. Some kind of relaxation that would be.

By comparison a leisurely evening to spend anyway she likes in her own company. I wouldn't think there to be a difficult choice to make between the two scenarios for most women.