This is an IHeart podcast.

Hello listeners of the Therapy Gecko podcast. Welcome to Geckmail.

This is a type of episode that I do sometimes when I don't want to take phone calls and I want to read emails and I want to rant for a while in response to these emails.

I have had people email me at Therapy Gecko Mail at gmail.com.

And sometimes I get more emails than I can fit into an episode.

So I just have a rolling rolodex of emails.

So I might read some emails in here that are 13 years old.

Or at least, you know, a few months old.

But, so that's this.

This is Gekmail.

Do I have anything that I want to rant about before we get started into Gekmail? Not really. Not particularly. But I am going to challenge myself once again to see if I can take an hour of time in which I force words to come out of my mouth. And that's this. This is

Gekmail. Let's get started. First mail is from Pokemon. Subject line, Feeling Down in Japan.

Hey, Lyle, you can call me Rob. I've decided to seek your gecko wisdom about my sorrows in the

East. I'll try and keep it brief. I came here as an English teacher from Canada in 2022, and I'm now

living in my fourth city. I moved for a better job, and things are pretty good there, but I've been dealing with

loneliness and doubts about my life in Japan. When it comes to the aspect of loneliness, I feel like

I can't make meaningful relationships socially or romantically with anyone, especially locals.

The few times I've joined social meetings, I get a list of contacts that never turn into anything,

and I've gone on dates with people only to be ghosted.

The most recent one hit me hard because after four dates and telling this person how much

ghosting hurts, they still went and did it anyway.

It feels like no matter what I do, where I go, what I join, it all ends up the same.

...