Japanese men seem to have problems making freinds, 35.4% of Japanese men polled by Spa! magazine claimed not to a single close friend. 300 men in there 30’s  were polled. Spa! magazine defined close friend as such;

“Someone you can open your heart to no matter what the situation” is the answer most favored by survey respondents

One Japanese man’s story about freindship:

“What if I die and nobody comes to my funeral? What if my wife dies and I’m left all alone in the world?”

Such thoughts keep Keiichi awake nights. They’re usually associated with the elderly, but Keiichi is 38. Having lately lost his job, he has come to realize how isolated he is. His wife alone stands between him and utter friendlessness.

Keiichi was an introverted child and had no close friends at all until college—golden years, but they soon end and college friends are easily lost sight of. Then came work, with its daily grind that leaves little time for anything else. A series of transfers in rapid succession left him a perpetual stranger. He married, and there was no one to invite to the wedding except relatives and a few company colleagues.

Then his employer went bankrupt and he was out of a job. He and his wife now get by on day labor, earning between them 100,000–200,000 yen a month, with no better future in sight. “If I had a friend,” he muses, “maybe he could introduce me to a prospect.”

Then there’s Eiji, 37 and job-hunting. He has more than 1400 “followers” on Twitter, but they’re hardly friends. His family moved around a lot when he was a child; then he had to leave college early owing to illness. He got a job at the post office, which, as he tells it, “doesn’t exactly have the sort of atmosphere where everybody goes out drinking together after work.”

“It’s not just money you don’t have when you’re unemployed,” he says. “It’s contacts.”

So he twitters. It’s better than nothing but, he says, not really satisfying. But though he wants friendship, he seems uncertain as to what he seeks in a friend. That’s why he shies away from meeting his Twitter mates offline.

“I tend to be guarded about my feelings,” he says. “And isn’t a friend someone you’re supposed to be upfront and honest with?”

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