You know, it’s no secret that love and relationships are difficult. Just finding someone you mesh well enough with to want to spend time with can be a chore and a half, let alone all the work that comes with real, mature relationships.
So it’s little wonder that folks will simply embrace affection wherever and with whomever they can find it. That often ends poorly, of course. And whatever you think about your ex, it probably wasn’t quite the same thing as dating an actual, real cockroach.
But, that’s just what Japan’s Yuta Shinohara claims to have done.
According to Asian Boss , Yuta, 25, dated a cockroach named Lisa for more than a year. Yes, you read that correctly.
Yuta clearly has a complicated relationship with insects because he’s what’s called an entomophagist – he eats insects.
As off-putting as that might sound to most of us, there is a growing movement to eat more insects as a source of protein instead of meat.
Entomophagists see insects as an environmentally sound alternative to traditional meats because they don’t require large farms that have a big impact on the Earth.
In fact, Yuta has a shop where he makes and sells his own insect-based cuisine.
He says that the caterpillars that live on cherry blossoms taste like cherry blossom rice cakes, and that he has served up about 7,000 bowls of cricket ramen so far.
So at least regarding eating insects, Yuta is in good, if somewhat rare, company.
In dating a cockroach, not so much. But Yuta says he doesn’t date human girls anyway. “No girl was as attractive as Lisa,” he says.
Lisa wasn’t a common, household cockroach.
Yuta says he ordered her from a farm in Africa, and although they were only together for about a year, he says it was “100% serious,” and that Lisa was his first love.
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Obviously there are some limitations to intimacy when dating a cockroach.
But Yuta says he fantasized about it all the same. “I know it’s impossible, but I imagined a world where cockroaches are supersized or I became smaller,” so they could have sex.
Yuta was destined to have to say goodbye to Lisa sooner than later just because of the short lifespans of cockroaches.
And even knowing that ahead of time, he says that “the day she passed away was difficult.”
When Lisa did die, he “ate her with reverence. So now, Lisa lives in my heart and continues living as part of my body.”
Yuta says he’s not dating anyone, or anything, right now.
It seems he’s content to just focus on his business and keep making interesting dishes. “Although I’m not the type of person who makes big business plans, I know I want to focus on what I do best,” he says,” and pursue how to present its attractiveness.”
h/t Asian Boss
