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The story
A thread titled “I want to ask those over 40 and single — is life fun?” appeared on 5ch’s Hello! Project chat board. Replies started off heavy, with comments like “Not fun at all” and “Even my oshi-katsu (fan support activities for idols) started to feel empty, so I quit.” From there the discussion spread to married posters venting, philosophical debates over why people go to the gym, and even calculations of retirement pensions. The thread split over questions like whether devoting yourself to a hobby while single makes you a “loser,” whether working out is really just overcompensating for insecurity, and whether a pension alone is enough to live on in old age.
What people said
Even oshi-katsu (idol fan support activities) started feeling hollow, so I quit.
I'm a second-generation Soka Gakkai member (born into the religion) and I've wasted 40 years in it. ＿|￣|○ (ASCII emoticon of someone slumped over in despair)
Just a simple question, no hidden agenda.
Are you an Anju wota (fan of the idol Anju)?
Meanwhile my awful older sister, who never could get married because her personality's so bad, is closing in on 60 and still living a miserable life taking her anger out on everyone around her at every opportunity.
Total loser.
That's kind of enviable, sounds fun.
I'm from the countryside so idol events are rare for me.
Going to idol events every single weekend makes you a loser.
A real winner like me uses flex time to catch the first part of a bar event.
I've kept up buying cheap records at record shops for over 20 years now,
and I still enjoy it without getting tired of it.
I'm a streaming guy.
Got rid of all my CDs.
Used to go to Disk Union a lot in my 20s.
Are stores like that even still around?
What are you even going to the gym for?
What else would it be for besides building muscle?
I'm asking what you're building muscle FOR.
Knowing you could beat someone up if it came down to it gives you mental peace of mind, and it makes the other guy instinctively scared, which tends to work in your favor in life generally.
Just like how the difference in military strength between the US, Russia, and Japan shows up as a difference in diplomatic leverage.
That kind of thinking is exactly how I know you're a sketchy person.
It's not sketchy at all.
It's literally just animal instinct.
Guess there's no helping it if you can't even realize it when someone points it out.
So even though you're human, animal instinct wins out over reason for you, huh.
After taxes that pension will probably come out to around 120,000 yen a month.
Finally get to enjoy being unemployed, only to live in dire poverty — guess I'll just retire from life itself after about 2 years. Goodbye.
You can start collecting your pension at 60, right?
It gets cut by 24%, but someone who starts at 65 doesn't catch up to someone who started at 60 until their 80th birthday.
Even if you draw down 50,000 yen a month from savings on top of your pension, that's only 600,000 yen a year.
If you keep working until 65 while collecting your pension and save up 6 million yen, you won't have money troubles until 75.
There's inflation and stuff to consider, but still — what exactly is that "20 million yen" the government keeps talking about even for?
I feel like once you're past 65 there's barely any big expenses left anyway.
That kind of counting your chickens before they hatch is pointless since you don't know how long your life will actually go on.
Total amounts like that are just armchair theorizing.
The longer you live, the more your expenses increase year by year,
since your body just keeps wearing down.
like a complex about being short, for instance.
In a sense it's the weak saving themselves.
If it's about overcoming a complex, isn't that a good thing?
Way better than someone who does nothing and just rots away.
That I can understand.
They're doing it with a purpose.
And the guy looking down on others is doing it so he won't be looked down on himself.
Except you're already being looked down on for being single lol
If you're over 40 and still can't accept yourself, that's just immature.
You probably haven't given something up yet, or you're still tied down by something.
That's the kind of single person who ends up unhappy.
Someone who can't establish their own sense of self by their late 20s probably never will.
That's the growth ceiling for people who are immature and can't think for themselves.
Yeah, I get it.
It's normal to wonder about that.
There are also people who go to the gym just to keep up their muscle training habit.
Bodyweight training alone is hard to stick with, and it's hard to see the results too.
They cling to it because they've got nothing since.
High education but no work history is rough.
Impressive that someone can hold onto that childlike sense of omnipotence at that age.
At least having a real academic background is something.
There was a sad piece of work who boasted to "Wolf" about getting into an art college through an essay-based exam and "graduating" while basically just checking in at the school nurse's office the whole time (a euphemism for barely attending due to being unable to handle regular classes).
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Japan’s employee pension (kosei nenkin) is designed to start payments at age 65 in principle, but if you claim early starting at 60, the amount is reduced by 0.4% per month, for a maximum reduction of 24%. The calculations cited in the thread follow this system, so they aren’t baseless numbers. That said, pension amounts vary widely from person to person depending on enrollment period and income, so it would be premature to apply one poster’s example directly to your own retirement planning. The other major topic — “why lift weights” — was discussed with a mix of motives all tangled together, from maintaining health to overcoming personal complexes to acquiring physical intimidation in social situations, without ever settling on one conclusion. As for the relationship between being single and life satisfaction, the thread simply lines up anecdotes from married and single posters side by side; no statistical backing is offered, so readers should keep in mind that this stays firmly in the realm of personal impressions.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “I want to ask those over 40 and single — is life fun?“
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