I really didn't mean to leave everyone in suspense after my last post on Project Host. I can assure you it won't happen again, as I wouldn't ever use the word "suspenseful" to describe my everyday. Naive and unthinking Geisha that I am, I just couldn't wait to tell the beau about how I had made friends with Roses. This. did. not. go. down. well.
And I should have known better, as I would shit a brick if the beau decided to start trading emails with a hostess or kyaba-jyo. Oh wait, I have! When we were first dating one of his rich and balding customers took him and some guy who works for him to a kyaba kura (cabaret club) where they pretended to be the presidents of their own companies. A couple days later one of the bitches, I mean girls from the club, emailed him asking for money. Apparently a "talent" scout had loaned her money and if she didn't get it back to him by the end of the month he was going to put her in an AV (adult video). So what does she do? She emails the beau for monetary support.
But I digress. The beau being in the water trade himself knows a fair bit about the business and told me that not only did I have no idea what I was doing, but that he could tell me exactly what Roses would email me next. Basically I was letting myself get played, despite knowing that was what the game is all about. I lost sight of the fact that hosts do not make friends with their customers. It's more insidious than that. They email their customers (which is what all the bored-looking hosts lounging around at the club last week were doing) and actually go out on dates with them. Not just dinner dates, dates dates. Once they've secured the woman's feelings, they get them back to the club as customers, and out comes the expensive bottle of brandy or a champagne call. After Roses' date list email, I should have realized there were not going to be any fun nights out with a group of friends and the next step would have to be a date.
The beau perused Roses' emails and proclaimed him a hack and not very smooth. Apparently if he had been smooth, he would have mentioned a really nice restaurant to get me interested. In a later email he would tell me that he had managed to get us a reservation and that he would treat me. He would treat me and it would all be downhill from there. I felt like a silly little girl after the beau set me straight. I made the fatal mistake of thinking that somehow my gaijiness would be the ticket to making friends with these hosts. There is no ticket to making friends with them I suspect, short of meeting them outside of the club. That is how good they are and I think I understand now why so many women here get roped in. Every woman thinks they are different, that this time the host does want to be their boyfriend (or friend). So they go on enough dates to "fall" for the guy, and then he invites them back to the club. I won't pretend that I'm not disappointed. I'm mad at myself for my grandiose plans of becoming chums and having heart-to-hearts on the state of male-female relations in Tokyo.
Readers, I assure you if I was a single gal or with a guy I wanted to flick, I would have gone the distance for you. For the sake of Project Host research I would truly have become a participant-observer as they say in anthropology, probably going further than I should and attempting to shed light on the myths surrounding hosts-customer relationships. After being schooled by the beau however, I realized that I had taken this as far as I could without going on a simu-date with Roses. This doesn't mean I won't be going back to Club Love, because I will, and I will find out what it is like to become a return customer. But I will not be receiving any more lists of possible dates from Roses. I didn't reply to his list.
The next day I got another email from him asking if he shouldn't have emailed so late the previous evening and encouraging me to tell him if there were any other things he shouldn't do. The he said that if I had any ideas for our date (he used this word) I should tell him. This was followed by some heart marks and a Let's meet soon when our schedules allow. And with that, he said he was off to work. I resolved not to email him again, as it wouldn't do any good. But that went out the window earlier this evening when I got off work.
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5 comments:
Actually the boyfriend used to be a host, and he was telling me the same thing the other night.
My friend and I plan to visit either Club Love or Acqua in January for her birthday, so I was laughing and telling my boyfriend about it. He gave me a very stern lecture about what I should expect and what to be careful of.
I'm sure Roses and many other hosts are nice people, but apparently they can be very underhanded and cruel too. Nice, sympathetic hosts like in GiraGira are only television inventions apparently (not that I expected clubs to be like on T.V).
I am super-curious. In what capacity is Green-Eyed Geisha's boyfriend in the water trade? And what type of work did Kelley's used-to-be-a-host boyfriend find? I understand if you want to maintain your privacy, so please feel free to answer more generally. Like many, I am intrigued by the world of hosts (and their post-host careers). Thank you for sharing these stories. m(_ _)m
kelley & jared: I have got to start watching this Gira Gira show, both of you have mentioned it and I am intrigued!
I agree that hosts are human too but due to the nature of their jobs, they have to be underhanded to get paid. Or at least paid more.
The beau is not a host (he's told me stories though about being something similar to a host at a supper club) and at the moment he is working within the mizu shobai but not in a host capacity. One of his friends used to be a host when he was a student and is now a pro athlete...
I don't think you should be so hard on yourself about this, really. We all had a great time that night and I don't think any of us were astute enough to doubt the hosts' sincerity. They just seemed so freaking enthusiastic!
You’re probably not the first or last one to be intrigued about Host Clubs and want write about it. The only thing I know about them is from a documentary called "The Great Happiness Space: Tale of An Osaka Love Thief." It’s pretty insightful into the host club world. They are good at manipulating women. You probably would have only come back with a much lighter wallet.
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