Dear Dategirl,
Nine months ago, I met a girl who was visiting from Japan. We really hit it off and hung out together for a week until she had to go back home to Japan. Since then, we’ve been communicating over Skype and have fallen in love.
I want to make plans for our future together, but I’m concerned because she works in one of those hostess bars. I heard some of the girls sell themselves, but mostly it’s a place where lonely Japanese men go and have someone sweet-talk them. I understand she has to be super-friendly and smile and wink at the men if she wants to make tips.
My worry is that she might be a prostitute, even though she says she only flirts. She doesn’t live a lavish lifestyle and she’s never asked me for money, so I think I believe her. But when I asked her if she was a prostitute, she blew up and said she had too much pride to ever do something like that.
My faith was shaken again when I showed a female friend her photo, and the friend said my girlfriend has a “hooker face,” insisting she was able to tell if a girl is a hooker just by looking at her.
I want to visit her, but not if she’s a hooker. How can I know for sure?
—Long-Distance and Worried
Indeed, “Hooker Face” is a rare syndrome that affects women—and men—who have accepted cash for sex. Luckily for those morally bankrupt scoundrels, even rarer are the insightful types who know what to look for when scanning a face for traces of pay-for-play. (Hint: The Mark of the Whore is left of the nostrils.)
Some women who work at hostess bars do more than giggle flirtatiously and peel fruit for their customers, but from the limited research I’ve done, those ladies are in the minority. Most of them just sit around and smile pretty while drunk customers act like horny morons. It sounds fairly depressing even without the sex part. I don’t know what your girlfriend is up to, but I don’t know what my boyfriend is up to for most of the day, either. I just have to believe that he isn’t trading money for sex because I love and trust him.
Which is why I don’t think you’re suited to a long-distance relationship. Your original letter was about four times as long as what I’ve edited it to here, and you sound a tad unhinged. Besides your idiot friend’s opinion of her “hooker face,” your girlfriend doesn’t sound like she’s done anything to earn mistrust. Yet you’re so quick to judge.
This wasn’t an established relationship that went long-distance when one partner got a job on the other side of the world. You guys barely knew each other and she was gone, and I don’t believe a real relationship can develop strictly via technology.
Has it occurred to you that she doesn’t know what you’re up to either? For all she knows, you’re banging other broads—like the bee-yotch who insists your girlfriend’s a prostitute. Love is all about giant, stupid leaps of faith. If you want to make a go of it, do it.
FYI: October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. If you or anyone you know is facing violence at home, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-2233. This line is open 24/7, and can give callers contact info for local resources.
