Q.

Dear Meredith,

Greetings from Japan. I’m a queer non-Japanese woman in a relationship with a fairly older Japanese woman. It’s been a different enough experience that I’m questioning some things and could use your help.

Over the last year, after a confusing and emotional end to a three-year relationship, I’ve spent considerable time learning that a) I didn’t really know how to self-soothe and was seriously insecure, and b) those two things are the driving reasons I’ve been a serial monogamist my whole life.

I did the work over the last year to learn to self-soothe, and while my journey to complete emotional security will likely be a long one, I’m definitely in a better place than I was before. If only because I wanted sex enough that it was beginning to drive me crazy, I felt comfortable trying out the dating scene again.

I met a woman I was interested in and we started dating.

And this time, everything just feels … different? And I’m not sure if it’s in a good way or a bad way. Or just a different way.

Previously when I fell for someone, I fell hard. The feelings were intense and often obsessive. I thought about the person all the time. The “new relationship energy (NRE)” was strong, hot, and compelling. But this time, its less like Old Faithful and more like a pleasantly warm bath.

Let me be clear: she is easily the hottest woman I’ve ever dated. Smart, an athlete, a sexy job – the works. This is definitely not a problem of attraction.

But the lack of intense NRE is throwing me off. Is this warm-feeling excitement normal? It feels like I skipped right over the emotional honeymoon phase. Which is not bad, just weird for me.

There are a few other factors that might be at play: as a culture, generally, marriage and relationships can be more practical than emotional here. Young people try to give love relationships a try, and then sometimes marry for practicality. It’s much more about alignment of values and personal goals. Indeed, that was basically her entire reason she asked me to go steady: “We envision similar futures for ourselves and we get along really well.” After we’d been dating for a month, she asked me to move in.

Which leads to the second potential factor: she discovered her sexuality late in life, and has experience with flings but not serious relationships. In Japan it can be really challenging to meet queer people outside of urban areas, and she’s from quite possibly the most rural area in the country.

So when she asked me to move in, I had to be the one to explain the typical North-American dating “timeline” – how long until people move in, marry, meet families, etc. When I asked her about the typical Japanese timeline, she didn’t know. Despite her being more than five years older, when it comes to navigating healthy emotional relationship practices, I am definitely the partner driving the bus. And to be fair, there’s probably a lot of me projecting Anglo-European relationship expectations onto this relationship.

I love spending time with her. The sex is great, we make each other laugh, we enjoy going out and doing all sorts of activities together, and she’s right: we do have similar visions for our future.

But it just feels different than my previous relationships. Am I nitpicking? Is it normal to not feel obsessive or compelled to be together? Is this the *actual* normal, and all my previous relationships were driven by unhealthy emotional dynamics? Help me out here.

–Smitten (and overthinking it??)