Dating in Japan

The process of becoming a couple is this; first a boy and a girl meet each other for the first time, then if either of them becomes interested in the other they ask the other for a private time together. After that one of them will declare their love to the other, and if the other person accepts it they go steady.
I think this process is more or less the same as in any country in the world. The different parts are the details of the dating. Firstly, Japanese students often make couples through university, part-time jobs, clubs, some other community you belong to, or Gou-kon or Nanpa. Gou-kon is kind of a party where boys and girls meet each other for the first time. You often do this in restaurants, bars, or karaoke. In preparing for the Gou-kon, a boy invites some of his friends and the girl (who is often friends with that boy) invites her friends, and the party goes on by the leadership of that boy and girl. Next, a Nanpa is picking up a girl (picking up s boy is called Gyaku-Nanpa). This is often done by guys who think themselves as cool. Also, sometimes girls wait on a bench or on the street to be picked up. A typical example is the school festival in the university. There are girls waiting to be picked up, and the boys are asking them for a meal (often two girls and two boys). Secondly, Japanese people often have date in restaurants, the café, amusement parks, the shopping mall, the park, game centers, or the hotel. There are no unusual places, but when couples go to a game center or amusement park, they often take Pri-kura. Pri-kura are decorated pictures which you can take in a certain machine placed in every game centers (kind of the box where you take our license pictures). Finally, declaring a love is very important in Japan. This is the occasion when people express their own feeling to the other person (Japanese often don’t express their love to each other every time). Declaring love is the only way to form a couple, either by saying it face to face or using a mobile phone to call or e-mail. The reserved character that Japanese have is the reason they use their mobile phone to declare their love.