Comments by "redfish337" (@redfish337) on "Being Friendless in Japan" video.

@P.90.603 They've been wearing masks since before there were cell phones to hide behind. It's not a political to them. And even then avoiding random social interaction was given as a reason to wear one. Something that was normal to do some of the time for whatever practical reason just became normal to do all of the time. And so instead of signaling do not disturb some of the time- which is very reasonable, many are now signaling do not disturb all of the time which is damaging.
2
Nice PP. Go to any shows? I've never bothered to make any longterm friends there. But totally could. It's not hard. You're standing in line for hours with hundreds of people with at least one shared interest. Which is enough, but if you can find a couple more shared interests you might have a real friend. I'm pretty introverted but it's boring AF to stand there that long and talking to other fans makes the wait much more bearable.
1
@P.90.603 Of course it's an issue. Maybe not THE issue. But an issue. It's the same as people walking around with earbuds in or glued to their phone. It's a "do not disturb" sign. Now, in a big city, having a do not disturb sign on can be helpful because it's often simpler to fade into the background than actually be a named character. There are over a million stories passing through Shinjuku Station every day and no one's got time to be a named character in very many of them. But if the complaint is that you don't have friends, then don't make it so easy for yourself to fade into the crowd. Sure, plenty of loud and obnoxious people wears masks all the time. But lots of people use them as a passive defense against human interaction.
1