世論 What Japan Thinks

Two sillynesses for the price of one today, with the second dose also from goo Ranking, looking at the moment one realises that two people at the office were an item, for both men and women.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 26th of January 2009 1,071 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample were male, 6.9% in their teens, 14.3% in their twenties, 28.9% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.3% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I’ve not been in this situation in Japan, but it did happen once at a previous employer when I realised that one person was giving the other a lift home every night, yet they both lived in opposite directions. I actually ended up following their car one night.

Indeed, considering how closely everyone works and socialises, people keep their love life very close to their chests; it is not uncommon for someone in the office to suddenly announce being not just engaged, but actually married.

Photo from jasoneppink on flickr.

Ranking result

Q: At what moment do you finally realise your colleagues were an item? (Sample size=555, men)

Rank		Votes
1	When they took holidays on the same day	100
2	When they were making eyes at each other	98.1
3	When they were clearly very clingy	72.4
4	When they were together alone in the office	55.1
5	When they both went home at just about the same time	54.5
6	When there’s stuff they shouldn’t know but they both did	52.6
7	When they often have unreserved chats	48.7
8	When I bumped into them on holiday	35.9
9	When one freely took food off the other’s plate	33.3
10	When one was just too defensive of insults to the other	32.7
11	When they had matching mobile phone straps	31.4
12	Just as soon as one sent an email, the other’s phone rang	30.1
13	They both left their seats at the same time	28.8
14	When they both had private nicknames for each other	26.9
15	When they both came to work on the same train	26.3
16	When they both had sun tans after the holidays	22.4
17	Even though they were on good terms, they suddenly started speaking in polite language	20.5
18	When they had lots of shared topics of conversation	19.9
19	When they knew each other’s likes and dislikes	17.9
20	When there was a sense of tension between the two	14.1

Q: At what moment do you finally realise your colleagues were an item? (Sample size=516, women)

Rank		Votes
1	When they were making eyes at each other	100
2	When they took holidays on the same day	78.6
3	When there’s stuff they shouldn’t know but they both did	64.7
4	When they were clearly very clingy	58.8
5	When they were together alone in the office	50.8
6	When they often have unreserved chats	49.7
7=	When they had matching mobile phone straps	49.2
7=	When they both went home at just about the same time	49.2
9	When they both had sun tans after the holidays	43.3
10	When they both came to work on the same train	41.7
11	When one freely took food off the other’s plate	41.2
12=	When I bumped into them on holiday	40.1
12=	Just as soon as one sent an email, the other’s phone rang	40.1
14	They both left their seats at the same time	33.2
15=	When they knew each other’s likes and dislikes	27.8
15=	When they both had private nicknames for each other	27.8
17	When one was just too defensive of insults to the other	26.2
18	When they had lots of shared topics of conversation	23.0
19	Even though they were on good terms, they suddenly started speaking in polite language	21.9
20	When there was a sense of tension between the two	20.9