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The reason why the best spouse for an otaku might not be another otaku

Casey Baseel Oct 31, 2018
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It might sound like a match made in heaven (or at least a lovey-dovey romance anime), but two otaku don’t always make the right combination.

Getting married means sharing your life with someone, so obviously compatible lifestyles are a must for any couple looking to tie the knot. And since otakuism is, for many fans, a rather comprehensive part of their lifestyle, many otaku feel their best chance for a happy love life would come from marrying another otaku.

There are even otaku-oriented dating services set up to provide fans looking for love with just such a match. However, Japanese marriage consultant and Twitter user @hikarin22 says that marrying another otaku isn’t necessarily a sure path to long-term marital bliss, and instead recommends looking for a partner with a different set of traits.

オタクが結婚して幸せになれるのは同じ趣味のオタクじゃなくて、オタク趣味とそれにお金と時間をかけることを容認してくれる人です。相手がオタクかどうかはぶっちゃけ関係無いです。相手の趣味に対して理解のないオタクや金銭感覚の違うオタクだと例え相手がオタクでも喧嘩になります。

— ひかりん＠婚活菩薩 (@hikarin22) October 26, 2018

“The kind of person an otaku will be happy being married to isn’t another otaku. It’s a person who’ll understand and accept the amount of time and money you spend on your otaku hobbies, and that honestly doesn’t depend at all on whether your spouse is an otaku or not. Even if you’re married to an otaku, if you aren’t understanding of each other’s hobbies or have different attitudes about money and finances, you’ll just end up fighting.”

It’s a pretty convincing argument, While the word “otaku” most commonly gets used to refer to anime enthusiasts, it also gets applied to hard-core fans of video games, idol music, electronics, and a handful of other non-sports or mainstream show business hobbies. And even if you and your potential romantic partner happen to fall into the same broad category of otaku, a quick look at any Internet forum devoted to, for instance, anime or video games will show you that there’s still plenty of opportunity for uncivil disagreement between fellow fans of the medium as a whole.

You might expect your gamer beaux to have no problem with your dropping a chunk of change for a gatcha-style mobile game, only to find out that he’s extremely frustrated about how you’re wasting money on random loot boxes when you should be using it to pay for extra DLC characters for SNK Heroines, since that way you’d know exactly what you’re getting. Likewise, you might think three seasons of Slayers DVDs for 40 bucks is a bargain, while your otaku girlfriend gnashes her teeth at the fact that not only are you buying physical media for a series that’s 20 years old, but you’re throwing your money away on a low-def version.

▼ But if she doesn’t appreciate the comedy of the Noonsa episodes, you might have to ask yourself if you could really be happy spending the rest of your life with her.

Because of those potential pitfalls into otaku-versus-otaku squabbling, @hikarin22’s tweet was met with widespread agreement by other Twitter users, who left comments such as:

“That’s exactly right. I need to remember to thank my wife for being so understanding of my otakuism.”

“It’s important to have similar attitudes about spending. I couldn’t be with someone who keeps spending money on their hobbies even while we’re struggling to make ends meet elsewhere in our budget.”

“Otaku might seem all the same at first glance, but there’s a lot of variety even within the same genre.”

“The best thing is to try to find someone who spends a similar amount on their hobbies per month as you do.”

“My boyfriend is a game otaku and plays for hours a day. I’m usually sitting next to him reading a book and watching him play. I don’t know anything about games, but the visuals are beautiful, so for me it feels like we’re watching a movie together.”

Even Tokyo’s most prominent otaku matchmaking service advises its clients to have interests outside the traditional otaku spheres, in order to help them be a better-rounded, more relatable person. Because while it’s nice having a spouse who enjoys doing otaku stuff with you, it’s even nicer having one who’s understanding and accommodating of your level of passion for your hobby, even if he or she can’t match it.

Source: Twitter/@hikarin22 via Hachima Kiko
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’d like to thank his wife for being understanding of his buying three seasons of Slayers DVDs for 40 bucks.