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posted by martyb on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the 'fair'-choice? dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:42PM (3 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:42PM (#546243) Journal

    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.

    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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @04:39PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @04:39PM (#546321)

    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

      by Immerman (3985) on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:44PM (#546670)

      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

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday July 29 2017, @07:22PM (#546382)

    Pheonix666 wrote :

    Nuke wrote:

    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.

    Your second sentence disproved the thesis of your first, and I think that's important: you can learn how to talk to girls ....

    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 was not ugly at all, but I thought I was, and I was definitely awkward.

    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 :

    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)

    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 :

    I ... even dated a Flemish model and another who had been Miss Mississippi.

    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 :

    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

    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.