Dating in Japan

In Japan, dating is more private than that in the U.S. Actually, teenagers do not like to meet their classmates or their family when they are dating. They feel embarrassed to be seen dating by such people. On the other hand, it can also be said that they treasure their own memories or secrets. They do not want their relationship to be interrupted by anyone. They usually do not tell about their boyfriends or girlfriends even to their parents. So, in Japan, there are many cases that parents do not know about their children’s dating.
Of course, dating with cool boy or pretty girl positively affects their status also in Japan. However, I think Japanese people do not tell that they date to raise their own status. So, most of the boys tell that they date with their girlfriends because they just love their girlfriends (vice versa). They do not like to tell that they are dating because their partners’ status is high. However, partner’s status is actually an important factor for people to date with. Many Japanese women say “I want to marry with a man whose annual income is high.” It simply indicates that Japanese women think that men’s income (status) is important. To summarize, in Japan, partner’s status is actually one of the important factors for dating to some extent though they do not permit it.
In short, dating in Japan is more private than that in other countries and many Japanese people unconsciously think that their partners’ status is important. I think Japanese dating so closed that they do not like to talk about it correlating with social status but that status certainly influence dating.