Socializing in Tokyo, an Introverted foreigner's guide

Scene from Lost in Translation

I was initially planning on writing a post on 'How to spend your idle time in Tokyo', but realized this post might be more useful for foreigners like me, or ones planning to move here.

Tokyo can be pretty lonely if you are a foreigner, and more so if you are an introvert. It's pretty much true anywhere, when you are moving to a new country. You have to build new social connections from scratch. When you were young, it was a lot easier. You constantly met new people in Schools, classes, clubs, lan gaming parties. As you grow older, it gets harder to meet people outside work.

However in addition, in Japan, the language and to some extent the unique culture, often makes it harder to meet and interact with new people. If you are outgoing and comfortable with meeting totally random strangers, you could start with having conversations with people in coffee shops, trains and bars. For the rest of us, it's quite a daunting task to step out of our comfort zones.

Another Tokyo scene from Lost in Translation

Japan also has quite a few unique extended weekends, and planning a backpacking trip each time, out of Tokyo, gets frustrating. It gets even harder during long breaks like New Year and Golden Week holidays, when locals go home to meet their families. Which means, you'll end up with days of nothing interesting to do, if you don't know people around. But if you enjoy the quiet solitude, Tokyo has this incredible zen feeling, I have never experienced before. You feel truly invisible and free, walking amongst crowded cross streets, as if the world doesn't really care you existed.

All right, back to the post before my thoughts drift away. Here are few tips which I have found quite effective

1. Join groups on Meetup.com

Weekend trip to Shirakawa-go with Meguri club

Birds of a feather flock together. As clichéd as it may sound, foreigners in Japan are quite active on meetup.com and often hangout together. It's a great place to meet people, make some friends and most importantly, find people to travel together, in those early days of your move. Obviously, the challenge is taking the first step. It can be quite intimidating if you are shy and aren't used to meeting a big group of strangers. As an introvert, I often feel exhausted having to meet new faces every time. The key is following up separately with a select few, that you seem to connect with, after the meet up event, something I wish I was better at.

The other issue is, popular meet up groups have a hard cut off on the number of people that can participate in their special events. And it gets quite frustrating when you keep getting rejected. It's one of the main reasons I have stopped attending meetups. Despite that, it's a great place to start when you are new in Tokyo

Below are some of my favorite ones in Japan for you to try.

-  Meguri Club

- Tokyo spontaneous Hangout

 - Sangenjaya International Meetup

- Tokyo Street Photography

2. Joining Sports clubs or gyms

My badminton club in meguro

Dining and partying are the most common events organized by groups on meetup. If you are like me and have absolutely no interest in socializing in a izakaya, I suggest joining a sports club. I find language not a big barrier for playing sports. And you get to meet people who share the same interest as you.  Getting someone you know to accompany you for the first few sessions will ease you into the club. I typically try to spend my Friday evenings and weekend mornings playing badminton. I do meet people in my local gym but haven't found anyone interesting, outside my work, to meet up outside. Despite a languishing social life, my fitness levels have definitely improved since I moved to Tokyo :)

3. Making Friends at work

Takao-san with friends from work

There are high chances that you hate your colleagues, during work, leave aside, hanging out with them outside work. I am extremely lucky that my firm has a unique culture globally, thanks to our very selective hiring criteria. It shocks outside people that some of our best friends are folks we work closely with, on a daily basis.
Obviously, the risk is that you end up spending a lot of your time at work and with people from work, and may lose the opportunity to interact with fascinating people outside, everywhere.

4. Manga, Games and the Otaku culture

I do neither but seems being an Otaku is great way of learning the language, culture and eventually making friends. If you are into any of these, this could be a nice way to extend your social circle


5. Finally, Learn the Language!

In my 16 months of living in Tokyo, I am certain of one fact. The single most important lever in improving your social life here is learning the Language. You don't feel awkward accepting social invitations. You don't feel too zoned out during conversations over dinner. And you actually have fun.
Learning Nihongo and socializing more are indeed in my new year resolutions, though the progress so far has been embarrassingly dismal. I plan on starting a new blog - Lazy Nihongo, to motivate myself to learn Japanese.


It was a fairly long post but hope it was useful. I will keep updating the post, as I find new avenues to extend my own social circle. And if you live around Minato-ku, and need someone to talk to, share a conversation, or just hangout with, feel free to message me. All the Best!