In Japan is it okay to ignore messages?

Hello everyone,
Since coming to Japan in August I have had a lot of difficulty making friends. Often when I meet new people, I figure that I should get their facebook so that I can keep in touch with them and hopefully plan to met up again, but I have had an issue of people plainly ignoring me when I contact them through facebook. It's the same story every time; I meet a person(in all honesty it is often a girl) who at some time during our conversation expresses that they had fun talking to me and want to meet me again, yet when I contact them through facebook, I get ignored(the message says 'read' and stays that way indefinitely). It really upsets me, because the messages often involve very neutral questions that are getting plainly ignored, and in my home country I feel like people would not leave such a message read and unanswered for days/weeks/months.

DETAILS: I'm not sending any insulting or sexual messages, the messages are usually written in intelligible Japanese, and replies generally stop coming after 2-3 messages or when I ask when they are free to meet for lunch/karaoke/whatever.

It is not "okay," but oftentimes people use it to show that they are not interested. So I suggest taking lack of responses at lack of interest, and moving on. Sorry to say this, but this seems to be they way (at least among relatively young people in Japan) to drop friends.

(From an older Japanese living in Japan)

I think he/she doesn't like to meet you alone. If both of you have a mutual friend, then he or she may respond you. He or she understands that you are not closer friend yet.
It's typical aspect that Japanese people respond in social way, polite, gentle and kindly accept your offer first, the decline or never answer as you process go further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae

I'm afraid it seems to be sort of a "trend" among younger people to ignore instead of making excuses. In my days, we'd just say "I'm sorry but I'm busy" without saying much else, and after about the second or third "busy," they'd get it. I'm not sure which would be more disturbing, though.

How do people reject dates in your country, by the way?

If you are sending the messages in English, sometimes it's also just a pain for them to write back. Responses tend to be slower when it has to be in a foreign language EVEN if they are very good at English.

But the above responses are all right, too. Ignoring people is the Japanese way of letting them know they are not interested. It can be particularly annoying when they previously went out of their way to emphasize how much THEY want to meet again when it was completely unnecessary to do so.

Generally, though, if after 3 times they ignore or send a lame "busy" response with no indication that they hope to reschedule, you can safely assume they don't want to meet/talk again. It's cold, but that's how they do it.

look for the post "Why Japanese never say no? "under customs, where you post your message on that category. maybe there you can get some answer