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Making Friends in Tokyo Is Harder Than You Think.
When you first arrived in Tokyo in the spring, every day felt new. A new job, a new school, a new neighborhood. There was so much to learn, and weekends were spent shopping for furniture or looking for a favorite café. Life kept you busy.
Before you knew it, several months had passed. You had settled into work and the neighborhood, and changing trains no longer left you confused. Then, one day, a thought crossed your mind: “When was the last time I really sat down and talked with someone?”
Once you have settled into work or school, perhaps what grows most is your circle of acquaintances, while what shrinks most is the number of people you can casually invite out. This article explores why making friends in Tokyo can be difficult, and a way of living that might lie just beyond that difficulty.
📖 Contents
“Want to Grab Dinner Tonight?” Can Be Surprisingly Hard to Say
Connections in Working Life Depend on Plans
Still, We Don't Want to Be Alone All the Time
Somewhere Between “On My Own” and “All Together”
Final Thoughts: Friendship May Not Be Something You Go Out and Find
🌃 “Want to Grab Dinner Tonight?” Can Be Surprisingly Hard to Say
Tokyo is full of people. At stations, in offices, in cafés. You pass countless people every day and speak with plenty of them at work.
And yet, something feels a little strange. There may be surprisingly few people you can casually ask, “Want to grab dinner tonight?” So many people, so few you feel comfortable inviting out. Perhaps Tokyo is a city where those two realities exist side by side.
🤝 Connections in Working Life Depend on Plans
Once you enter working life, more and more of your connections revolve around making plans. Work commitments, plans with a partner, plans with family. Meeting up starts to require a reason, and “Let's just have a chat” gradually becomes harder to arrange.
Perhaps that is why, in Tokyo, getting to know more people does not always feel like making more friends. Your collection of business cards and contacts steadily grows, yet somehow the number of people you can see without needing a particular reason does not grow nearly as easily.
🌙 Still, We Don't Want to Be Alone All the Time
Of course, time alone matters. Watching a favorite film, reading a book, immersing yourself in a hobby. Time when you do not have to think about anyone else's needs helps you feel centered again.
But people are curious creatures: we do not want to be alone all the time, either. A “Welcome home” after work. A chance encounter in the kitchen and an “It was hot today, wasn't it?” An offhand comment like “Apparently there's a festival nearby.” Sometimes those little moments bring a little warmth to the day.
🏠 Somewhere Between “On My Own” and “All Together”
A share house is not a place where you have to spend every day with other people. Rather, it is somewhere you can respect one another's need for space and live at a comfortable midpoint between “on my own” and “all together.” In your own room, you can be alone. But on a day when you feel like talking to someone for a little while, there is someone in the living room.
Tokyo is an incredibly convenient city. You can get anything you want and go anywhere you like. Perhaps that is precisely why you sometimes notice the value of things money cannot buy. Having someone you can naturally say “Let's walk to the convenience store” or “Shall we have a coffee?” to, for example. Even without special events, having someone like that in your life makes everyday living a little richer.
In fact, one survey found that more than one in three company employees in their twenties felt they had no real-life connections that gave them a sense of human warmth or belonging. If you have recently found yourself thinking, “I know more people now, but I haven't made more friends,” you are not alone.
🎯 Final Thoughts: Friendship May Not Be Something You Go Out and Find
Perhaps friendship is not something you deliberately seek out and create. It may be something that develops before you realize it, as you live in the same place and share one ordinary moment after another. In the busy, convenient city of Tokyo, it is easy to forget that sometimes.
If you are interested in a life with other people around and someone you can casually invite along, take a look at the properties on TOKYO SHAREHOUSE. From spacious layouts to houses with more or fewer residents, you can choose a home that offers the balance of company and personal space that feels right for you. We hope to keep sharing the possibility of that kind of life.
TOKYO SHAREHOUSE Editorial Team
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*Tokyosharehouse (LLC) does not carry out the administration of specific services that may be deemed as unfair toward other users or serve as an intermediary for moving into housing. For any questions regarding specific services or moving, please directly contact the owner or manager of the share house you wish to inquire about through our website. Also, please be aware that we cannot provide the contact information of the share house managers or owners.
