Is it custom to invite?

I've been best friends with a Japanese girl for several years now and I've never been to her house, so I asked her why and she told me it was Japanese tradition and she really didn't understand why... So i was interested why and I cant seem to find anything on the topic... So is it an old custom? And if it is why?

There are a few reasons:

- no big kitchen to cook a meal for several friends
- no space to host many guests (no dining room)
- ashamed of the small apartment (even though noone in Tokyo has a 80sqm flat...)

So, no, it's not a tradition nor an old custom.

Actually there are apartments over 100 sq meters more...
These ones are for rent:
Unit 301, 4 Bedroom Apartment, 223.99m2
Azabu Nagasaka Hilltop
AzabuNagasakacho 1-53, Minato-ku

Roppongi Green Terrace
Roppongi 3-3-23, Minato-ku
3 available 226~235m2 4 Bedroom

Homat Viscount
Akasaka 1-11-40, Minato-ku
2 available 206~258m2 4 Bedroom

For sale:
Apartment, 217.56m2 3 bedroom plus one bedroom for the maid.
Foretseine Akasaka Hikawacho
Akasaka 6-9-1, Minato-ku

Home on 2 floors, above stores: 298.01m2 5 Bedroom
Minamiaoyama 2chome House
MinamiAoyama 2, Minato-ku

No, it's simply not a custom. Home is home, and you meet people outside your homes to socialize.

When I was a kid and living with my parents (lived in a detached house in the suburbs of Tokyo), my father somehow got "talked into" bringing his American colleague and his wife home for a visit. The wife, as she would do in American homes, walked right into our kitchen, which was small, cluttered (but convenient to use), and facing the north, which shocked the American guest and embarrassed my mother. We had good space to sit around a coffee table in the living room facing the garden to have some coffee and cake, but that house lacked any space for five people to dine together. Houses are not built to accommodate guests :9 Customs do differ.

Sorry, actually, in my previous post I meant that it's not a tradition nor an old custom to not invite people home. Personally, I think it pretty much depends on the indivisual.

I do admit that perhaps more people today may tend to prefer seeing friends outside their homes, but especially in the old days, and especially in pre-70s when fancy cafes were less common, people used to commonly invite friends to their homes.

Even today, home is one of the best places for locals to save money when seeing friends, so it's probably more common among younger people. But there is indeed a tendency of gathering at a home where there is the least stress, for example, with no parents to bug you or lots of goodies to entertain you or more convenient for access or shopping on the way.

This is just my opinion, though.

I was born in Europe and in those days many people preferred to invite friends to a cafe or restaurant than at home...

One likely reason was that many women worked (my mom, my 2 grandmas, aunts. My maternal grandma worked as day maid for a lady that worked herself. her store being next to her home) and didn't wanted to go to all the trouble of cleaning the home, cooking etc.

While some Euro houses were small, not all were. My aunt,who was single, had a 1 bedroom apartment with separate sitting room and dining room, a verandah big enough to use as sitting room etc. and a big garden, so size wasn't necessarily the reason.

From what I understand, home is a very private place for them, especially for female. They will only invite their real close female friends or BF to their house. Even a guy relatives will not ask to go to their house if they are not being invited.

Well, it was a bit like that in Europe in my youth.
My parents would never have dared drop by their respective mom's houses without writing or phoning one week in advance.

As a teen I never went inside any of the houses of my school friends. We met outside their houses then went to a coffee shop or rode our bikes here and there..

A couple of times my parents and I happened to drive by one of my grandma house on our way to our home in another town, after a holiday in another region.
We stopped, honked the horn and waited in her front garden. She got out of the home, we kissed and talked but were not invited inside.

She actually went inside to get her bag and took us to a coffee shop nearby..