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Virtual reality games usually promise shoot 'em up adventures but in Hong Kong Friday lovelorn tech fans donned headsets to go on imaginary dates.
The city's annual Ani-Com and Games fair sees thousands queue to try out the latest consoles or buy up comic book collectibles, often dressed up as their favourite characters.
But for those who had spent too long alone in their rooms, a new VR smartphone app offered some romantic solace.
Users can choose between four female models and spend a vacation with them in either Japan or Thailand, joining them on trips to cafes, hot springs and karaoke.
They slot their phones into a plastic headset and are then immersed on a date, during which they can choose options for activities.
Promoters of the Hong Kong-made app, which is known by its Cantonese name "leoi yau" or "VR travel friend", said it was to help what they called "Otakus" to practise their dating skills.
The name is a Japanese term for obsessive manga or anime fans.
"We want to allow more people to try out what it's like to date a girl because there are a lot of Otakus who don't know how to communicate with girls," Margaret Ming, the app's communication officer, told AFP.
"This game can teach them how to get to know girls," Ming said, adding that there is some flirting involved in the story arcs with the models.
Helpful, or sad?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:59PM (11 children)
As someone who never had a girl friend until I was 24, I never knew how to communicate with them until that first one unwittingly taught me. She was so dumb (but really nice) that she failed to notice how gauche I was, so she put up with me. Perhaps the virtually reality dates are similar to that girl.
I learned from her that girls are generally not the slightest bit interested in guy's issues/hobbies/whatever as long as you were "gentlemanly" towards them and were prepared to talk about their issues/hobbies/whatever. Be prepared to spend hours listening with interest to them assasinating the characters of their sister/ mother/previous BF.
The guys who get off with girls are the ones to whom this comes naturally rather than having to learn it. Once I had learned, by my later 20s, I had plenty of GFs. As the meme goes, The things I wished I knew when I was 20.
TFA has a link on the word "girls" ! (just above the second picture). I followed this and it explains what a girl is :
"any female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood"
So now we know.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:41PM
That might be the funniest thing Phys.org ever did right there.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:42PM (3 children)
Your second sentence disproved the thesis of your first, and I think that's important: you can learn how to talk to girls even if it doesn't come naturally to you. It was that way for me, too. I never had girlfriends as a teenager and was convinced I was hopelessly awkward and ugly. I was not ugly at all, but I thought I was, and I was definitely awkward. But with a great deal of effort I overcame those latter two elements and went on to have a very popular 20's and 30's (even dated a Flemish model and another who had been Miss Mississippi). That mostly made up for the suffering and loneliness of the early years, but it would be a lie to say those scars aren't still there.
I can't speak for a woman's side of the dating equation, but for the guys the mental side of the equation can make all the difference and could even be the whole ballgame. So substituting a virtual girlfriend for a real one seems a little sad on the face of it, but if it can help shy men change the mental side of their equation then it's all to the good. If it can help them learn how to talk to girls without hurting real girls through rookie mistakes the way they would IRL, then even better.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @04:39PM (1 child)
IMHO, the problem isn't usually talking to women, the problem is that women are picky as hell and unimaginably shallow. Why anybody would put that kind of effort into somebody that's going to spend the next few decades emotionally blackmailing you is beyond me. No longer being in love with somebody is not now, nor has it ever been, a legitimate reason to seek a divorce. It's just those lazy ass women that won't do a damned thing to invest in their husbands well-being that think so.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:44PM
And you make this claim after dating how many superficially unattractive women?
Women commonly gripe about how there's no good men, that they're all neanderthals/assholes/etc, while conveniently overlooking the fact that so many men act like that because it works - so long as there's plenty of women out there that respond to crude displays of dominance, there will be plenty of men catering to that demographic.
I suspect most of us nerdy guys understand that far too well and feel a simmering resentment from hearing those complaints far too many times from women we would happily have been non-neanderthals for.
But as a class we're every bit as guilty, if not more so. Men tend to be very responsive to visual stimulus - physical beauty revs us up just as surely as competence and dominance revs up women - so it's not at all surprising that those who posses that beauty through the accident of birth tend to become every bit as much self-serving assholes as the Neanderthals. They're in high demand, having been handed a simple game that consistently succeeds in getting them the attention they want. Maybe it never works out quite the way they would really hope, but once you've mastered a "winning" strategy, it can be really hard to walk away from it, no matter how stale and bitter the "victories" have become.
So break the cycle. Try dating a superficially unappealing woman - find a nerd even more awkward and unattractive than you, someone who might become a good friend, but would not normally inspire you to romance. And then actually ask them out. Lower your own superficial standards and go looking for the substance you want instead.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:22PM
Pheonix666 wrote :
I did not word that well. Agreed - some guys are born with a natural ability to talk and act the way girls like (if only while courting), by chance not effort, while others like you and I are not - some of us may learn the skill but others don't.
Pheonix666 wrote :
I never thought I was ugly, in fact I never understood why girls turned away from me, neither did my male friends. I believe my facial expressions are "wrong" somehow.
Pheonix666 wrote :
The only girls I ever met were via dating club (pre-internet); any I approached otherwise told me to sod off or worse if they bothered to say anything before walking away. But I was very rarely in a situation to approach them anyway unless I walked up to them in the street (never tried that) or went to a public dance (that didn't work). It is a complete mystery to me how couples ever meet each other other than via dating clubs/websites. However with a pre-arranged date the situation is somewhat "captive" and I found some girls warmed to by the end of the date, enough for a second date anyway.
Pheonix666 wrote :
That beats me, but my fiirst GF had been a Bunny Girl at the London Playboy Club (but only for one day). She had the figure, and with some make-up could have been a centrefold. She got a job in a food factory but was promptly put in reception because of her guileless charm, but she was not as sexy and pretty as it might sound. She was a London cockney you could imagine best selling cabbages at a street market stall, and she was in awe of me as "brainy". The point is that even the most seemingly unapproachable girls are actually human and might be less certain of themselves than you are.
Pheonix666 wrote :
What galls me is that when you hear what women are supposed to like in men, I tick all the boxes (almost). Eg educated, fit, wealthy (I've been well off from my early 20's). But how would women know these things if they will not even talk to you, as I found except in the dating club.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:05PM (3 children)
So why even get a girlfriend then? Is it just for the free lays* and hugs, then?
I was lonely and now I have a boyfriend. I couldn't be happier. He's the most reserved, kind, understanding and affectionate person I've come to know. It also helps that he's one of the smartest people I've ever met.
Personally speaking, I just cannot 'connect' with someone that gossips all day and whom I can't share my intellectual pursuits with.
* Not the chips, mind you.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:51PM (2 children)
AC wrote :
Partly. As you seem to be a woman you probably do not appreciate how overwhelming a man's sex drive can be to him. It can be torture. Many women do like sex but in most cases it is more akin to liking a box of chocolates or seeing a good film - not in the same league at all. That does not mean men are sex maniacs (but are in some cases) but the unsatisfied drive can mentally exclude everything else and lead to depression or suicide.
AC wrote :
Ideally you need the co-incidence of three co-incidences :- (1) You are sexually attracted to someone you have "met"; (2) Someone you have "met" is sexually attracted to you; (3) Someone you have "met" shares the same interests as you. Note that you need to have "met" them, ie be in a social situation where conversation is able to occur - I might be sexually attracted to Miss World, but I have not "met" her.
To have all these co-incidences co-incide is rather a tall order, so some compromise must be accepted. I am married, with mutual sexual attraction, but our interests only partly co-incide. My wife is not interested in my hobbies of car mechanics, electronics, or writing; but we can both travel to interesting places and talk about Shakespeare. If I had held out waiting for a girl who was interested in car mechanics and electronics I would never have had a GF as I never "met" such a girl, although I am sure there are some in the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:47AM
It sounds like these people need to be introduced to something called masturbation. Oh, wait, that's not enough; they're being 'tortured' when they can't find someone who will have sex with them. What a toxic idea. As expected of filthy normies who are sexually attracted to real people.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:54AM
As you seem to be a man you probably do not appreciate how overwhelming a woman's chocolate drive can be to her. It can be torture. Many men do like chocolate but in most cases it is more akin to liking sex or seeing a good film - not in the same league at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:20PM
There are also a lot of Otakus who don't want anything to do with women and would rather have fantasies about anime characters. I'm not sure how some silly game could change someone's sexual preferences.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:52AM
It's far more likely that she was either on the autistic spectrum, and/or (gasp) she liked you and thus found your quirks amusing/endearing. (That's speaking from firsthand experience... Though the fact that your first comment about your ex was that she was a dumbass hints at part of why you weren't the most socially successful.)
Man, I'm autistic and even I knew as a teenager that few people enjoy hanging around somebody who doesn't appear to be remotely interested in them aside from as something to talk at. Beyond that, it's just basic good manners to ask about & show at least polite interest in the other person's life, regardless of who the person is. (Though I'm not sure whether you're uninterested in other people in general, or you're specifically uninterested in women as conversational partners/friends.)
Both sexes can be like that... But otherwise, that typically only happens if one (or more) of these is true:
a) You're asking out women who are single in large part because they're dysfunctional.
b) You're only going out with women who fit the particular stereotypes that include that kind of attitude/behavior, like the classic "imperious high-maintenance super-feminine bitch" type.
c) The woman has tried to talk about other interests, but isn't getting an active conversational response out of you, and is trying to fill the silence with anecdotes that she thinks/hopes are amusing.
I'd strongly recommend that you find women who share at least one of your interests, hang out with them online & off (in a group non-date atmosphere with other friends if possible), then pursue the ones who you enjoy talking & spending time with enough that they'd normally qualify as friends... You're a lot more likely to find someone whose life/interests you're actually interested in that way than you are through whatever approach you've been using...