As every bored gaijin knows, you’ll learn tons of interesting things with a quick read of the Men for Women ad section in Metropolis (yea, I know, I know… Look, we were stranded at First Kitchen after spending 20 minutes attempting to stop a cab at 3am in the Tokyo blizzard: you try and find better options for easy entertainment…). You might not actually “learn” anything even remotely useful, insofar as the collective IQ of all contributors probably doesn’t even reach the temperature of my armpit on a cold winter day. But at least you’ll laugh your ass off.

We advise our sensitive readers to skip the rest of this entry altogether, as it contains displays of blunt moronism and enough cliché molestation to make a live sport commentator blush like a little girl.

According to a random sample from this week’s batch of Metropolis classifieds (some of the best ones that were in print, do not seem to show up in the online version, unfortunately), we can establish that:

• Americans looking for “nice Japanese women” are all “gentlemen” who are “marriage-minded” and “looking for serious relationship” (but hey, if you are “fun-loving” and “discreet”, something can always be arranged too).
• African guys are all looking to help you solve your marital problems by offering “discreet relationships” with housewives whose husband would fail to fullfil their needs (note the “relationship” mother of all euphemisms, here).
• French guys, on the other hand, are real romantic types who apparently dream of nothing but to take their Japanese date out to fancy restaurants where they’ll eat only French cheese and French wine while listening to Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier or some other French guy playing the accordeon. My friend remarked she was actually surprised that none of them had yet resorted to something subtle along the line of: “Liked Amélie? me too. wanna fuck?”
• Just when you think French guys are establishing themselves on top of the trite cliché game, comes that “Greek man, from Piraeus” who, I kid you not, likes “living like zorbas, wine, singing”… Doesn’t mention anything about feta cheese and olives…
• Of course, we had our doubts regarding the hopes of the guy looking for “a smart Japanese woman who believes in God. Honest, good morals”… Placing an ad in a newspaper that’s little more than a glorified Roppongi Gazette doesn’t sound like the best way to get these catholic schoolgirl types.
• But the all-category winner of our shooting-fish-in-a-barrel-of-stereotypes session was this ad, addressing discerning Japanese women of any age, looks or tastes that were, among other forgettable qualities, and I quote: “attracted to Michael Moore”… Which leaves us essentially with two options: that guy is either shamelessly trying to play on the disproportionate cult following Michael Moore seems to have among the otherwise strongly apolitical Japanese youth…
  Or is a fat, middle-aged, dirty-looking, scruffy white man who would have come to Japan in the hope of getting laid.
  But surely nobody would do such a thing, now, would they?

And what am I supposed to say when my friends put it to me that foreigners in Japan are all stupid pigs who invest whatever little brain they got into desperate efforts to bed ingenuous and overly trusting Japanese girls.

If at least this was done with some basic style. But I think we’ll agree that Liaisons Dangereuses-level of seduction, this most definitely is not. And the average bored housewife or naive Japanese schoolgirl isn’t quite as difficult to double-cross as Madame de Tourvel.

Did I mention that the Women for Men section was nearly as entertaining?