“Wait – have you ever been in love?”

Sex and the City (season 1, episode 1)

You Are What You Love

Once upon a time, in the most populated city on Earth, a boy met a boy.

Ben had just relocated to Tokyo. He had bangs, glasses, a stubble, and what people described as a ‘good boy’ face. Countless languages and ethnicities graced his new surroundings, in addition to fast and precise service. His residence card was created swiftly, while his luggage was already waiting by the baggage carousel.

“Please be careful” was being repeated incessantly.

He accidentally took the wrong train to the city. With twenty-three special wards, twenty-six sub-cities, five towns, and eight villages – forty-six municipalities, each with its own government – plus four other sub-prefectures, Tokyo was less of a city, and more of a monster.

It was as if dozens of cities had banded together to form an urban behemoth that rivalled states. The Skytree was the world’s tallest tower, Shibuya was the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing, and Shinjuku was the world’s busiest transport hub. Among the latter’s twelve lines, three million passengers rode just the Yamanote, which circled central Tokyo, every day.

That wasn’t even the half of it, Ben said to no one in particular. Try memorizing Tokyo’s sixty train lines and nine hundred stations.

Tokyo was dark, drizzling, hot, windy, and humid. Dragging two suitcases heavier than Ben nearly killed him. Then his new flatmate, a professional wrestler, carried them up for him.

The wrestler was as strong as he was friendly. Another bodybuilder wrestler was three times wider than him.

There was a shoe rack at the entrance and a heated bidet. Paper-thin walls and a deflated mattress. An unstoppable, hours-long chat with the international flatmates raised Ben’s spirits.

Forty million people inhabited The Greater Tokyo Area, more than four times the population of New York City. Commuters from other prefectures and tourists from all over the globe added a few millions to this. More than 600,000 of the residents were foreign, with practically every nationality counted for. 6,300 people lived in one square kilometre. If 10% of them were queer, 630 of them were at a walking distance.

No matter the time or sexual orientation, in Tokyo, one could always find a date.

For thousands of years, queer people had struggled to pursue each other due to dread and secrecy. The twenty-first century was the first time in history where they could easily embrace the same sex.

In fact, it got so easy, that phone apps revealed their distance from each other in meters. They could see their physical proximity, send a message, and meet right there and then to fulfil God’s plan for the human derriere.

And they did so religiously. They exchanged photos, digits, girth, length, and inquired after each other’s preferences in bed. If the inventory checked all the boxes, they came together for some horizontal refreshment – or as the Japanese called it, a rest.

After this, they never met again.

They knew the other person was out there. Their faces (or torsos) re-appeared on their digital grid. They watched each other’s stories on Instagram, and reacted with a like or a message once every hunting season. Then they ignored the other person’s roar.

Having sightseen Tokyo last year, Ben knew what he was getting himself into, and who would be there for him. He chewed on this in a restaurant where conveyor belts transported sushi.

“I just don’t get it,” he said. “When did we enter the Age of Entitlement? People ask for fair treatment, and stab you in the ass.”

“Forget Reason, it’s the Age of Treason,” Mayume said. “People do what they want. If someone complains about it, they just block them.”

Ben chuckled. “By people, you mean you?”

“No, I just ignore them.”

Typical local. Skinny, shy, and strife-avoidant: all the S’s you needed for capital S sex. Mayume had anime-bleached hair, a ‘little boy’ face, and oversized, graphic clothes that obscured his bony frame.

It took Ben a second to recall the lay of this land. Whether the suffocating insistence on harmony, or conveyor belt sushi. Relationships and restaurants came with rulebooks: you took chopsticks from a box, poured soy sauce into a small dish, brewed green tea using a powder and a hot water dispenser, served yourself pickled ginger, ordered using a tablet, and always ate the sushi in one bite.

“What’s the big deal?” Ha-joon said in response to Ben’s grouching. “You have fun, until you don’t. Then you move on. It’s not like you owe them anything.”

Ha-joon was as slick as his monolids. He had perky, razor-sharp bangs, a ‘resting bitch’ face, and a plain, tight T-shirt that showed off his athletic physique.

“So you automatically reject any mess,” Ben said, “even if it might lead to treasure.”

“I don’t want any shit in my life,” Ha-joon said.

“And if you find the real thing,” Mayume said, “it won’t reek.”

“So basically, it’s one-night stands, or saving yourself for marriage,” Ben said.

Apart from the whooshing of plates on conveyor belts, silence fell on the table.

“You talk about very serious things,” a thick Asian-European accent, who had listened quietly so far, said.

Ben flustered.

“That is why you need both,” the voice continued. “Open relationships allow you to get whatever you need.”

Willem was a Tokyo trailblazer. He worked days at a hospital and nights at a club. His boyfriend lived abroad, so they hooked up with strangers during their time apart.

Even when sitting at a table, Will commanded the room’s attention. Taller than everyone around him, he wore dark, designer streetwear and silver jewelry. He had a ‘fashion model’ face, the kind that brightened a room when smiling, or came off as mysterious when not.

His English was magnetically slow, more eloquent than a native speaker’s. Ben always forgot Will’s Asian name.

“But then what’s the difference?” Ben asked. “You’re not committing to love, to sex, to anything, just to not committing.”

“To not committing,” Ha-joon raised his cup of tea and toasted with Mayume.

Ben frowned at this, while Will smiled softly.

“Oh, please, the right guy is bullshit,” Ha-joon said. “Haven’t you learned anything?”

“So what, you think love can never happen?” Mayume recoiled. “That it’s just for women? Not for gays?”

“Let me know when you find it,” Ha-joon said.

“You will,” Will said. “And then you will see the difference between sleeping with a stranger, and someone you love.”

“But I don’t know what it feels like to make love,” Ben muttered.

Silence again.

“I came close to, but I didn’t know it at the time,” he said. “So I never got to say ‘I love you’.”

“Oh, you have to tell them!” Mayume said.

“No way,” Ben said. “I’m trying this new thing where I have self-respect.”

“To self-respect,” Ha-joon toasted.

“It’s okay, I’ll just go with the other option,” Ben said. “Besides, years of writing complex philosophical fiction have prepared me for my greatest topic yet,” he added. “Gay sex.”

“Now that’s a tough nut to crack,” Mayume said.

“Good thing we have two,” Will said.

“One for fucking, and one for liking?” Ha-joon laughed. “The best of both sexy worlds.”

“So you never sleep with the same hookup twice?” Ben asked Will.

Will smiled in lieu of an answer.

More sushi arrived per the foursome’s orders. It was like a train set game, except with enthusiastic Japanese voices issuing from a tablet, and an endless supply of dead seafood. Ben stacked his empty plates and calculated his accumulating bill according to each plate’s colour.

“Seriously though, the moment you dislike something about someone…” he began.

Mayume put down his chopsticks and imitated waving.

“Bye!” he said. “Have a good life.”

The restaurant’s tablet announced incoming sushi. Ben fetched the cucumber rolls and sighed.

“Shouldn’t advancements in communication advance our communication?”

Welcome to the Glass Age. It was just like the Stone Age, where hunter-gatherers had roamed free, and done whatever they wanted in nature and with each other, without being tied down like farmers. Except now, they did it with a phone in hand.

The glass that coated phone screens was see-through in the way that technology allowed us to share more of ourselves. It was touchable in a way that meant someone special was a mere tap away. It was reflective, so it confronted us with our real face. And it stood for Gays who Love Ass.

So why did it turn us into assholes instead?

“You are what you love,” Ha-joon said.

In the era of social media and dating apps, pictures superseded personalities, and an infinite dating pool burned to death all the fish in the ocean. It was like global warming, if coal was semen.

Gay dating had never been this accessible. Hormones raged at the speed of Wi-Fi and turned it lightning-fast. Some gays met complete strangers after three sentences.

“Looking for fun?”

“Top or bottom?”

“Can you host?”

Communication had never been so facilitated. So naturally, it went down in flames.

Boy meets girl, boy spends a magical time with girl, boy vanishes into thin air. It was a tale as old as time, and Ben had no appetite for hounded game. What would happen if a boy met a boy in the one country on Earth that could win the Ghosting Olympics?

He didn’t. He entered a fancy Shinjuku skyscraper, where a Japanese goth whipped out a fat sashimi the likes of which he’d never seen at an onsen. But the toilet stall with the spaceship washlet was too cramped, the risk of being caught was too high, and the goth’s tongue was probing Ben’s tonsils. He’d never gone hunting in this country with such a heavy stick.

The entire situation was so uncomfortable, that he started to sweat. There was no way he could keep playing. And besides, size was secondary to beauty.

He apologized and left with the intention of never meeting the goth again. On his way home, he noticed the goth had blocked him.

The Evolution of Sex

Ben woke groggy with jet lag and rushed to his first-day errands. In Japan, to rent an apartment, you needed a bank account. To open a bank account, you needed a phone number. To get a phone number, you needed to register your address. So the first step was to reside at a temporary accommodation.

He exited his share house in Shin Okubo. The main road was a Korean wet dream, full of Korean food, K-pop, and boy bands who strutted around just for the attention. It was also a pedestrian’s nightmare, with narrow pavements and hordes of slow walkers.

The air in Tokyo was heavy with humidity. It felt like a weight Ben couldn’t lift. The streets were grey and treeless, with noisy cars, quiet pedestrians, and tall buildings. People of all ages and genders were carrying parasols in the July heat. Some even used pocket fans.

Then again, ads inside trains in Tokyo featured Nintendo games more than any other product. Also, some anime.

Japanese people didn’t talk inside trains or eat while walking. No trash cans in public added a nuisance on the one hand, and eliminated all street trash on the other.

Instead, ubiquitous were actually the vending machines. And kimono-ed women. High school students with matching uniform, backpacks, and bowl cuts who wore masks as they chatted down empty alleys on their way back from school. And of course, a lot of attractive people who stood out among the swarms.

Whether foreigners of every stature, skin colour, and features, or people with outlandish outfits, there was no limit to the characters one could stumble upon simply by wandering in Tokyo.

Nor to the number of convenience stores. Ben discovered already on his first visit to one a new kimchi and fermented soybean sushi roll, plus a new matcha variant of his favourite Japanese snack.

Indeed, the best of both sexy worlds.

Japanese retail workers maintained utmost hygiene. They wore masks, received your money using a cash tray, and helped you with your smartphone using a pen with a soft end. That was how Ben bought his local SIM. Not a single customer service agent who assisted him in the busiest hub of the world’s biggest city spoke English.

Then a real estate agency for Japanese clients warned him that landlords refused foreigners, while a bank informed him that, to open an account, foreigners needed to reside in Japan for more than six months. The only possibility for fresh expats was the post office’s online banking system.

As Ben trotted across Shinjuku with his to-do list, he noticed how much Tokyo was loud. Vehicles vroomed, train announcements barked, jingles looped inside department stores, pedestrian crossings beeped, and phone cameras made shutter sounds. Only in residential streets did life turn quiet.

But it didn’t get any simpler. After wondering all his life how it felt to fall in love, lovemaking was his next big pursuit.

The first few times he had crept upon it, he hadn’t noticed it was close. Only in retrospect, in another land, had it dawned on him that he could have claimed the gold.

The last time was the best, because he’d recognized this uncharted territory while still in its zone. Yet it was over before even being set in motion.

Love always hit you out of left field. One day you felt powerful and potent, as if no one could get in your way. Then you stumbled upon a prowler who knocked you off your feet and splashed your guts on the road. You felt so safe with this new hunter, that you bared your soul. If your knees didn’t give in at first sight – if you didn’t feel awkward – if your intimacy didn’t spike all the way to wild proportions, then this race would crash down a waterfall.

When all of this had happened to Ben, the blood in his body had rushed to his heart. He’d forfeited the match, because too many thoughts had burst in his brain.

It was always the ones who towered above all. They were more attractive, more experienced, and he was a child who wanted to disappear off the face of the earth, rather than embarrass himself more.

What was it like to be in a relationship with someone you loved? Ben wondered. How did sex evolve with a reciprocal, emotional bond that transcended physical joys?

How would I answer those questions. People talked the talk, but skipped the walk. They hounded you, lied to lure you in, and fled.

The cherry on the eggplant was: they always did so after planning a joint future. “Next time we meet…” “If we got married, our names would sound like this…” Worst was the simple promise: “We’ll stay in touch.”

Eligible women struggled to lay their hands on an eligible guy who would ditch the hunting grounds with them hand-in-hand. But what about guys who scoured rainbow brick roads? Ben couldn’t figure out if this game of hide-and-seek was a result of technological determinism, biological hormones, or gender roles. Were lesbians exempt from tagging along?

He knew neither guys who spurned hookup culture, nor girls who separated sex and emotion. Maybe the exceptions to this had never confided in him before.

The sun set as he returned to his share house through Tokyo’s red-light district, Kabukicho. The darkening sky and flashing neon; the hustle and bustle of diverse people. It felt both lonesome and grandiose.

He passed through his usual hotteok stand in Shin Okubo.

“Oh!” the Korean auntie gasped before he even said hello. Even with his hat on, she smiled at him in recognition, after a few times of him buying her pancakes in the fall.

“Where did you go?” she asked in Japanese. They exchanged a few sentences in Korean afterwards.

Ben rejoiced over the potential his new habitat held in store. Then he encountered a cockroach in his room even bigger than the huge ones back home.

Where’s the Fire?

Saki came over in the evening. A bespectacled guy with a ponytail, there was no one in Japan Ben was closer to.

They hugged and immediately caught up over life and money. Sitting in Ben’s cramped room, with his suitcases open in complete disarray, Saki tried Ben’s fresh Israeli food.

“What have you been up to since we last met?” Ben asked. “Don’t say ‘just work.’”

“Just work,” he said.

Like any other Japanese person.

But he would quit in the fall, and travel to meet his girlfriend in Spain.

Every dish Saki tried, he chewed without expressing any reaction. Then he voiced his opinion. The cheese reminded him of yogurt. Matza and taboon bread were curious. The best rugelach in the world, from a famous market in Jerusalem, were unbearably sweet. The most famous Israeli snack too.

Japanese people were infamous for being two-faced. They hid their private thoughts to maintain conformity. Saki stood out in his frankness. Yet his palate was still too Japanese for overseas levels of sweet.

In the Japanese language, the responsibility was the listener’s. They ought to understand everything through context, so the speaker omitted vital information. The closer people were, the better they understood one another. Thus, the less someone said, the better.

Customer service agents bombarded you with endless sentences rife with complicated words and grammar.

“Welcomedearcustomerweareincrediblyindebtedtoyouforsteppingintoourestablishmentpleaseletusknowifyouneedanythingandhaveawonderfultime” would be the closest equivalent in English to their speech.

In stark contrast to friendships in the West, Saki sprinkled short, casual sentences here and there.

Ben walked him outside after too short of a time together, and hugged him.

“Foreigners love to hug,” Saki chuckled.

At night, Ben tossed left and right in bed. His head was in Israel, but his body was in Japan. In the former, everything was big: reactions, hugs, everyday threats, and topics of discussion. In the latter, everything was small. Locals didn’t take up space, make noise, or boast about their achievements. They didn’t exhibit extreme emotions, fight over politics, or embrace at all. People bowed even when passing Ben, and constantly begged for good treatment. They never demanded it, like in Israel.

By midnight, Ben felt drained. It was hard to believe that this was still just his first full day. This organized wilderness required hunters to re-wire their brains. With no guarantee of a good job, an apartment, or a relationship, he lay wide awake on his thin mattress, heard his flatmates through the walls, and wondered: was this the beginning of the rest of my life?

Chasing a prey was always more suspenseful than biting into its flesh. He just didn’t know if he’d get to taste anything that would match his palate.

He went to clear his head in the shower when he stumbled upon some flatmates in the hall. The English bodybuilder was walking around in his underwear, while the Turkish wrestler was trying to rest before his match tomorrow.

Soon enough, Ben huddled with three other flatmates in a tiny room, where two of them sat on a bed and two, like Japanese people, on the floor.

The two girls were both twentysomething bisexuals named Rose who had left their home country and stayed in the same room.

Rose Number One was a half Chinese and half North Indian who’d studied at an international school in Dubai. She had been traveling the world since high school graduation, with the goal of taking full advantage of her twenties. Asians rarely gave her the attention she was used to, because the locals here were more interested in white foreigners.

Rose Number Two was a Hungarian forensic investigator from a rough background who had dated a Japanese girl so shy, that she’d had no idea what to do in bed; and an ex-yakuza member who had fled to Europe. Nowadays, she spoke conversational Korean, and was dating a Korean pilot. He had already introduced her to his parents as his friend, yet barely initiated any sex.

“Next time you see him, tell him you want to take a rest,” Ben said. “Or, when you hold hands, stroke his palm with your thumb.”

After over a year together, she still had no idea how indirect most Asian were when it came to sex.

“I’ve never been introduced to someone’s parents,” Mateu muttered. He was a charismatic Catalan guy here for a summer course at a Japanese school before foreign exchange studies in Shanghai, because his Chinese was better.

Ben almost echoed his sentiment.

Mateu had just gone out on his first, awful date with someone from a dating app – a Chinese girl with a foot fetish who had tried to get freaky inside a karaoke parlour.

But he and Rose Number One were quickly churning out jokes. They possessed that quick sense of humour you had to rush to keep up with. Even though this foursome had just met, the two were already finishing each other’s quips, and smacking one another in hysterics.

“I’m so happy to hang out with cool people like you,” Mateu said.

Finally, back to an international, instant-friends, sexually-liberated vibe. Throughout the day, the polite suppression of Japanese people had subdued Ben. Where’s the fire? He’d thought. Then he’d ignited it. For a warm social life in Tokyo, one ought to forage for Japanese and foreign wood.

After hours of late-night conversations, he retired to his room. From here on, he spent every night doomscrolling on social media in bed, searching for potential apartments, and waiting for his bloodshot eyes to close. Except they didn’t. He couldn’t stop talking to ex-lovers in his thoughts.

In the darkness, he munched on Israeli snacks, until birds chirped and light penetrated his window.

The Straight-Friend Zone

After three hours of sleep, Ben woke even more exhausted. Orientation at his new school was a blur. He crashed on his bed in the afternoon and nearly dozed off, when Mateu suggested going to the Friday party at the Takadanobaba language café where Ben had volunteered before. It was always teeming with young people, both locals and tourists, who were hungry for some international relations. All-you-can-drink and refreshments were the hors d’oeuvres to the main course.

Then he found that his conversations with the partygoers didn’t flow as well as with his flatmates.

Guys and girls were hitting on each other in full force. Many a desirable bachelor and bachelorette were playing along. Ben kept to the sidelines, however, since there was no room here for any rainbow.

Then, after already talking to a few dozen people from all over the world since relocating to Tokyo, someone asked Ben for the first time about the Israeli-Gaza war.

The fact that it came from an American frat boy was no shock. The fact that he was half-Japanese and listened quietly to Ben’s opinion without arguing about politics reassured Ben that he had made it to the right side of the globe. Japan was a pocket reality where politics didn’t exist at all.

Across the room, Mateu was fidgeting with battle shock.

“I’m not good-looking enough to attract anyone’s attention,” he said.

False.

A Japanese girl fluent in Spanish had him gearing up for a crusade. She was probably the most beautiful Japanese person Ben had seen. After chatting with her, Mateu insisted that she wasn’t into him.

“How do you know for sure?” Ben asked. “Just go get her Instagram.”

“Nah, I’m only interested in those who are interested in me.”

Ben kept encouraging him throughout the night, the same way a straight Romanian guy had acted as his wingman during Seoul Pride a year ago. Mateu couldn’t even bear to try.

“I know how you feel,” Ben said. “Everyone has those nights. They’re kind of necessary, in a way.”

He mustered up the courage and danced with her. But her visible enjoyment wasn’t enough to change his mind.

Then Rose Number One mirrored Mateu’s mope.

The “hot guy” she’d been dating wanted to date other people. She seemed on the verge of tears.

“He’s in this room,” she muttered and looked away.

No girl at this party seemed cooler to Ben. She had straightened her wavy bangs, added a thin line of eyeliner on both sides of her eyes, pierced her nose, wore a metal chain, and showed off her flat stomach with an effortlessly cute punk outfit.  

Attractive straight people were also going through my average gay problems? Did everyone feel ugly and invisible at some point?

After the party, Ben noticed the only other queer in attendance: a thirtysomething billionaire who was working in fashion. He looked so familiar, that Ben could’ve sworn they’d met before.

He talked instead to a former graduate of his new school. Whether at the airport, at orientation, or at the café, every location in Tokyo ambushed him with a new, blue-eyed white guy who stood between 1.90 to 2 meters tall.

The straight-friend zone didn’t bother him, though. No heterosexual could make him nervous, nor reject him over his looks. He acted like one of their buddies, and that involved no deception.

A Bittersweet Kiss

Lunch with Saki at an Indonesian restaurant for his birthday. Shin Okubo, an immigrant neighbourhood, boasted a variety of cuisines.

“If you take out your wallet,” Ben said while ordering, “I will kill you.”

Saki let out a nervous laugh.

“I’m scared.”

He didn’t understand Ben’s humour at first. A Westerner would’ve retorted an even kinder intimidation.

Two 29-year-olds who shared the same passions, interests, and tastes. Lunch started off strangely awkward. Ben had already gotten used to rapid-fire English with his flatmates. Moreover, today was so hot, that both their faces were covered in sweat.

“You know, I’m also looking for a new apartment,” Saki said. “Do you wanna live together?”

“Absolutely not,” Ben said.

Saki laughed.

“I thought there weren’t any apartments for roommates in Japan,” Ben said. “Aren’t Japanese people too shy for that?”

“They dislike meeting new people,” Saki said.

After nearly choking on spicy Indonesian sauce, Ben walked Saki to the train station.

“I get that Japanese people don’t hug,” he said. “But what about birthdays?”

“Nope,” Saki said.

Ben rolled his eyes and waved goodbye as he paced away. Saki laughed and waved back.

The afternoon roared with a storm. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled several times a minute. Ben rushed to Tokyo Station, the upscale (and sunny) business district.

Taking a train in Tokyo was like entering a peaceful war zone. Automated voices announced instructions without stopping for air. Trains darted every two minutes, and passengers always filled them. The stairs were too populated to climb fast. Five-year-olds were roaming stations alone with a backpack bigger than them. Somehow, the whole experience was both orderly and clamorous.

Ben arrived at one of the fanciest museums he’d been to. It was the last day of a Brancusi exhibition that was free for students. He’d seen The Kiss, one of his favourite sculptures, twice or thrice before. It depicted two lovers locking bodies and lips. For the first time, Ben understood the full extent of the couple’s intimacy.

“In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two,” a Japanese guy from Kyoto had once quoted Erich Fromm to him.

The Kiss captured this unification in matter. The lovers were distinct, resembled each other in attributes, and were carved of a single stone.

Then a certain kiss resurfaced in Ben’s head. A long, breathless, first-person example of the above. He had recreated this sculpture without even realizing so.

“I like how you hold me tight, even when you start to breathe heavily and snore,” Ben recalled being told. “It felt like I was being loved.”

He continued around the exhibition with his jaw dropped. Geometrically simplified representations of birds and people gleamed like gold. Another exhibition featured every important Western artist from impressionism to abstract expressionism.

After the museum, he explored Ginza, Tokyo’s Fifth Avenue. It became a pedestrian zone on weekends, so shoppers could comfortably carry all their Gucci, Prada, and Hermes bags in the middle of the road.

As he savoured cherry blossom and salty lemon bread rolls from Japan’s oldest bakery, he asked questions as if to a void.

Have you ever made love? Did you catch that prey who dwarfed all? Did that lion also tame you, and with that arousing domestication, make you realize that this was freedom?

He walked back to Tokyo station. In the past, it had taken him half an hour to find the only shop in Japan outside Sendai that sold edamame shakes. It was his favourite local drink.

The person who had introduced him to it was the first queer Ben was interested in. Sendai was where their mutual pursuit had failed. He’d vowed to never return to that city. So he paced to the shop, remembering its exact location inside the transportational maze.

Nothing felt more refreshing at that moment than the thick, ice-cold smoothie, when every inch of his skin was covered in perspiration. Nor was there anything more bittersweet. The sugary soybeans brought memories to his taste buds and tears to his cheeks. He cried as he sipped while waiting for the train on the platform. For six months, he’d searched for that lost fairy.

Wanting someone who didn’t want you consumed you with defeat. Wanting someone who wanted you, and you rejected with cold feet, was your fault entirely.

He took the Yamanote line back to his share house. Twilight fell on the city. Tokyo felt too big at that moment. He would never find a lion in a jungle of forty million beasts.