I had it every week and later almost every day, but all the time with the same person ^^'. Of course trying it with many people would be best, but with my average/below average look, shyness, "sticking to the plan" mentality I would be just getting striked out all the time on normal dates, since from what I read here Japanese woman don't take initiative (although my experiences were totally different and that is why I shared them). Actualy from those 3 women I met (I will write here about the 3rd) I "invited" only the one for sex, so my experience is that they are actually pretty proactive (and remember there were many from Tinder that also asked me out, but we never met).
Try, fail, repeat also wouldn't help a lot, because even if I knew what to do my personality wouldn't allow for that... so just have to be happy with what I got. And it would be a lot of wasted time, since as I said before just meeting someone isn't really that interesting for me.
Anyway the topic was about first dates, so we are going off the rails now. I had one more "date" with another woman, but that went in a totally friendly atmosphere. Ghibli museum, no hugs, no holding hands...and actually that was the only "date" fully in japanesee even though she just came back from 1 year trip "around the world" that included long stays in english speaking countries to learn the language. And it ended with spectaculary awkward high five like thing, cause I had no idea what to do.
The one that bothered me was the cinema->restaurant-> cinema "date", I mentioned it a little, but she is also a little bit of otaku, that spends a lot of free time in home alone, so she also didn't have a lot of dating experience, so all the "signs" and "hints" might have had no meaning or different meaning from what veterans like You are used to. If I ever learn the truth what was going thruth her head during that "date" I will post an update.
Sorry I missed that
I don't think that word means what you think it means. At least from where I come living together and having sex together is a bit more than friendly.
I think words like that can have many definitions depending on people that use them. Just like "date". When 2 people meet, one of them might think it was a date and the other thought about it as a normal meeting. It all depends on their individual feelings. I think that what makes difference between friend and girlfriend/boyfriend are emotions and not actions, so I am using term friend. Of course many people need some special emotional bond to take ceratin actions (like sex), so that might sounds weird when someone else does those things, but doesn't have the same feelings we are used to. But isn't situation like that called friends with benefits ?