世論 What Japan Thinks

The subject matter for this ranking survey from goo Ranking suggests there may be either poignant romantic thoughts or scary stalker-like activities; you’ll probably not be disappointed to hear that both extremes feature in this survey on actions taken when recalling lingering affections for an ex, for both men recalling women and women recalling men.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 2nd of February 2009 1,076 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 7.2% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 29.4% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.3% 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.

Such is the progress of techology that answer two for both male and female was re-reading email rather than pouring over old love letters! Pretending to be drunk and phoning her up is always a good tactic, though!

Ranking result

Q: What do you do when you recall an ex-girlfriend that you still have lingering affections for? (Sample size=550, male)

Rank		Score
1	Search for her name on the internet	100
2	Re-read saved exchanges of email	70.4
3=	Try to imagine what the future would have been if we hadn’t split up	56.3
3=	Casually ask a mutual friend how she is these days	56.3
5	Check if she’s signed up to an SNS, community web site	53.5
6	Go to a place of memories	52.1
7	Get lost in memories looking through photo albums	45.1
8	Listen to a CD of our songs	45.1
9	Dig out things she gave me	42.3
10	Get a partner compatability fortune telling	29.6
11	Go and look at her house	23.9
12	Watch a movie we used to watch together	22.5
13	Search for a local thread on a bulletin board	14.1
14	Search for a perfume she used to wear	9.9
15=	Pretend to be drunk and call her up	8.5
15=	Search for her home on Google Maps, etc	8.5
15=	Ride the train to the station near her house	8.5
18	Blog a coded message that only she could understand	7.0
19=	Go to a restaurant we used to go to and order the same meal	5.6
19=	Go and look at her place of work	5.6

Q: What do you do when you recall an ex-boyfriend that you still have lingering affections for? (Sample size=526, female)

Rank		Score
1	Search for his name on the internet	100
2	Re-read saved exchanges of email	82.9
3	Casually ask a mutual friend how he is these days	78.6
4	Try to imagine what the future would have been if we hadn’t split up	75.7
5	Listen to a CD of our songs	68.6
6	Check if he’s signed up to an SNS, community web site	65.7
7	Get lost in memories looking through photo albums	61.4
8	Go to a place of memories	51.4
9	Get a partner compatability fortune telling	45.7
10	Dig out things he gave me	42.9
11	Search for a scent he used to wear	27.1
12	Go and look at his house	22.9
13	Watch a movie we used to watch together	17.1
14	Pretend to be drunk and call him up	15.7
15	Search for his home on Google Maps, etc	14.3
16	Blog a coded message that only he could understand	12.9
17	Ride the train to the station near his house	11.4
18	Spread a rumour that he still has lingering affection for me	5.7
19=	Search for a local thread on a bulletin board	4.3
19=	Go to a restaurant we used to go to and order the same meal	4.3