こんいちは！アンバです～
In Japan, if you don't want to talk to someone anymore. You ignore them. Now, it's not the flat out I'm-never-going-to-talk-to-you again ignoring-- no no, that's considered rude. What I'm talking about is the gradual small talk conversations.
Let me explain with my story.
I won't mention names, so let's call him... "Joe" for the sake of protecting his identity. "Joe" and I were good friends, we've known each other for a good year and a half, going on two years. We use to Skype almost every day for at least an hour, to two hours long. We would talk about our likes and dislikes, how our day went, what we were excited for, what we would do when we meet up, just fun stuff. "Joe's" English was a lot better than my Japanese, so we mostly conversed back and forth in English.
As we got to be closer friends, we started to like each other, and I was pretty thrilled. "Joe" was a nice guy, and he wasn't ugly either, he was pretty handsome. In the beginning of the new school year, I had offered to get him some American candy. Why? Because he wanted to try some, and so I bought a bunch of different types of candy and sent it to him. It watched in the video chat on my school bus him opening it up and eating it happily. And seeing him happy made me happy.
This didn't last for long though.
After a few months, I had noticed his text messages on Skype were getting shorter and shorter and less frequent. Normally, he would reply right away with excitement but they were beginning to lack the joyfulness.
It's been over 3 months since I've last video chatted with "Joe" and I haven't even had a conversation worth mentioning about with him either. I've come to realize that he was no longer interested in me. Not at a friend, but as a person.
He just doesn't like me anymore.
This is the usual Japanese procedure of telling someone off. In Japan, it's best to be considerate of another person's feelings, so by ignoring them, you get rid of the "risk" of hurting their feelings. To be honest, I don't believe that's right.
Not only are you worrying the other person, you make them wonder "What did I do wrong?". This is a part of the Japanese culture I dislike, if "Joe" would have straight up said to me, "I'm sorry, I don't want to talk anymore." I would understand, and I wouldn't be as hurt as I am now. But what's done is done,
Some friendships aren't suppose to last forever I guess...
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