Famitsu Issue 1321 (April 10, 2014) (supplements included)

"According to Kondo, he confessed his love seven times, but was rejected on each occasion. In addition, he recalled he was laughed at and bullied for being an otaku....Upon being bullied at work, Miku took an extended sick leave and was diagnosed with adjustment disorder"

They should be glad he didn't turn into the Joker.

I can't believe this guy thought "confess your love" is something real people do.  To much time spent watching anime, I guess.  OF COURSE you're going to be rejected when you corner some girl alone in a hallway and tell her you love her, despite having never even gone on a single date and possibly never even spoken to them before.

"Er, hi.  You probably don't know me, but...I LOVE YOU!!!  Would you like to be my girlfriend?  Let's go on a date!"

It's like they're trying to take all the steps in reverse.

And they wonder why no one is getting any: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9z2pp80nyo

I imagine those confessions were something that took the course of his life like in school and such. Did you never have a crush or confess to a girl before without getting to know them all that well?

We don't know the details of what happened during those rejections. It could be out of the blue like you said or it could be more complicated.

It states he was 41 at the time of the article so he is a different generation plus from the current ones so I can't speak to why Japan is the way it is now for the article you linked but it's not like it is any different from the past where a slue of people of both genders would rather go to host/hostess clubs than ask somebody out in Japan in my opinion. Again, I don't know.

7 hours ago, ml0045 said:

I imagine those confessions were something that took the course of his life like in school and such. Did you never have a crush or confess to a girl before without getting to know them all that well?

Having a crush on someone you hardly know is fine.  Telling someone you hardly know you love them makes you seem at best a little pathetic and possibly a little threatening.  You're right, I don't know the exact circumstances, but the way I see it, unless you believe that telling someone "I love you" will result in them saying "I love you, too," you're jumping the gun.  I somehow doubt that such an obviously socially awkward person developed that kind of intimate relationship with seven different people before confessing and being rejected.  Which is why I assume he tried to begin their relations with a love confession, which is madness and OF COURSE will be rejected.  Unless the person you confess to is a piece of vocal software programmed to be agreeable, of course.

Maybe something got lost in translation in the article and his rejections were actually to something more benign, like "do you wanna grab a coffee sometime?"  which puts more sympathy in his favor.

I wanna make clear, btw, that I'm not making fun of this guy for being a nerd, being socially awkward, or for being rejected, no matter how he went about confessing his love.  But he DID marry a piece of software, and eventually built a lifesize doll to house it so he could have physical relations with it as well.  And that's fair game for ridicule, so far as I'm concerned.  He's not hurting anyone, so he's free to keep on keepin' on, but I'm free to smh if I wanna.

1 hour ago, kitsunebi said:

Telling someone you hardly know you love them makes you seem at best a little pathetic and possibly a little threatening.  You're right, I don't know the exact circumstances, but the way I see it, unless you believe that telling someone "I love you" will result in them saying "I love you, too," you're jumping the gun.

I really think this is more of a confession kind of thing of wanting to see them as a potential lover rather than reciprocal expectations. Any time I confessed to someone, it was to make my feelings known as to change the dynamic going forward even if it meant "I'm sorry, not interested." It at least put an end to it. I don't think anyone really is in love when they do this. They are just infatuated or crush as you put it. This is my experience though as I can't speak for others.

Of course you can shake your head if you want. I am not saying in the slightest what he is doing is normal at all. This is more than likely a broken down man with a social anxiety issues or more. I'm just saying he didn't get there overnight. He just stopped trying after failing several times.

Yeah, there are lots of lonely people out there.  People get rejected all the time.

Not so many of them spend $13,000 on a wedding to marry a piece of vocaloid software and then spend thousands more on a lifesize #$^@doll in its image.  Which is why most lonely people don't have articles in the New York Times written about them.