Getting sick of foreign men in Japan

Not because the majority of them fall into anime freak, Alpha male monster, social misfit crank or all-round gimpoid, but because they all seem to be stalking me.

The problem stems from the cliched foreign man held view that foreign women in Japan are fat, hairy, bitchy, undesirable, viciously sex-deprived unfeminine objects of ridicule that dare to hold an opinion and don't shave their faces.

Should one cross their path who is none of the above (apart from the opinioned part, naturellement!) They start frothing at the gills and groin and any hitherto held semblance of normal social intercourse goes out of the window.

Part of it it the problem with the choice of friends you have as an expat. Ironically, my current two chief stalkers have even mentioned themselves that they wonder if they would hang out with some of the people they do here if they were "back home." You have a relatively small pool of foreigners to choose from and the chance of really hitting it off with someone is quite slim, so you make do. Problems begin when the person you are making do with seems to view you more highly or doesn't have the self esteem to care that you really don't give two figs about them.

Tapping into my vast reserves of originality, I will term the first stalker Mr A and name the second Mr B!

A-san is a new case. I met him a few times through the one person here I really like hanging out with (Scott, who is leaving in September). He keeps inviting me to this really lame English-style pub with a scary regularity. It's partly the predictability, but also the fact that the pub has a tin of Heinz beans behind the bar and a Sooty puppet hanging from the menu (fish and chips, welsh rarebit...groan) is more than off-putting. A sent me 20 mails in one night last week. A asked me what my weekend plans were yesterday and I didn't reply to the mail. A then re-asked me today. A has mentioned that maybe I'd like to go to his in-laws place in Nara one weekend (huh?!) A keeps hugging and kissing me on departure and this is made even grosser because he smells of sour milk.

B-san has plenty of problems to overcome as a recovering alcoholic. He has spent the past eight months dry, which is really commendable. Trouble is, I have spent the past six years having him on the phone for over an hour at a time, having him phone me from his home country when he returns home, trying to convince him not to climb out of a train window, having him start sobbing in restaurants, being made privvy to information that makes it pretty difficult to even want know him let alone spend time with him, watching him (along with the rest of the room) knock back two beers and one huge jug of soju as the waitress tried to close the bar, draw attention to us with his great booming voice and being the word's biggest tight arse.

However, I like B! I'd like to spent one evening with B about every two months: he's funny, considerate, interested in a range of topics and can be very pleasant company. B, however, wants to meet me every week or so. As B has no self-respect, I can draw on a range of ever more silly excuses to get out of meeting him. I never 'phone or mail B, but like clock work, he is ringing up asking if I want to meet from lunch on Saturday almost every week. again the predictability of it annoys me the most. I'm shouting at his emails (as I never answer the 'phone if his name appears) "Fer Gawd's sake think of something else!"