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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: 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.