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from the all-I-got-was-this-stupid-T-shirt dept.
Caitlin Dewey writes in the Washington Post that she's been using a new service called "Invisible Boyfriend" and that she's fallen in love with it. When you sign up for the service, you design a boyfriend (or girlfriend) to your specifications. "You pick his name, his age, his interests and personality traits. You tell the app if you prefer blonds or brunettes, tall guys or short, guys who like theater or guys who watch sports. Then you swipe your credit card — $25 per month, cha-ching! — and the imaginary man of your dreams starts texting you." Invisible boyfriend is actually boyfriends, plural: The service’s texting operation is powered by CrowdSource, a St. Louis-based tech company that manages 200,000 remote, microtask-focused workers. "When I send a text to the Ryan number saved in my phone, the message routes through Invisible Boyfriend, where it’s anonymized and assigned to some Amazon Turk or Fivrr freelancer. He (or she) gets a couple of cents to respond. He never sees my name or number, and he can’t really have anything like an actual conversation with me." Dewey says that the point of Invisible Boyfriend is to deceive the user’s meddling friends and relatives. "I was newly divorced and got tired of everyone asking if I was dating or seeing someone," says co-founder Matthew Homann. "There seems to be this romance culture in our country where people are looked down upon if they aren't in a relationship."
Evidence suggests that people can be conned into loving just about anything. There is no shortage of stories about couples carrying on “relationships” exclusively via Second Life , the game critic Kate Gray recently published an ode to “Dorian,” a character she fell in love with in a video game, and one anthropologist argues that our relationships are increasingly so mediated by tech that they’ve become indistinguishable from Tamagotchis. “The Internet is a disinhibiting medium, where people’s emotional guard is down,” says Mark Griffiths. “It’s the same phenomenon as the stranger on the train, where you find yourself telling your life story to someone you don’t know.” It’s not exactly the stuff of fairytales, concludes Dewey. "But given enough time and texts—a full 100 are included in my monthly package—I’m pretty sure I could fall for him. I mean, er … them."
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday January 27 2015, @11:05PM
I am noticing a lot my single friends are particularly stung by rejection. With services like this "Invisible Boyfriend" and concepts like Men Going Their Own Way [reddit.com] and The Red Pill [doctornerdlove.com] becoming popular, it seems like many people are fed up with dating and the opposite sex in general. Maybe if both genders lowered their standards just a bit, there would be a lot more happy people.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Tuesday January 27 2015, @11:23PM
You don't need to lower your standards, just your expectations. Nobody's perfect; odds are you're far from it yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @12:07AM
One of the problems is women who get used by manipulative men. They first see the guy as awesome then he uses her for sex and leaves to use someone else. As she looks back on this one relationship she sees herself as good enough to always attract 'awesome' men like him and then goes about ignoring everyone else who's interested in her because she's too far above them.
People grab the furthest they've reached and pretend that it's their norm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @09:46AM
They first see the guy as awesome then he uses her for sex and leaves to use someone else. As she looks back on this one relationship she sees herself as good enough to always attract 'awesome' men like him and then goes about ignoring everyone else who's interested in her because she's too far above them.
I'm going to assume that was sarcasm, cos surely you can't be that thick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @07:16AM
I'd like to second this. Nobody's perfect.
My internet "boyfriend" is struggling between two girls he's dating. I'm trying to suss out whether he wants a squeeze or a wife. He hasn't been in bed before. (Backup plan was we were going to get together this summer lol)
I hate to rick roll, but it's relevant. Nobody's perfect, but eventually one must go for the full commitment.
I think it's funny that rick roll has become a thing, when i believe that it's a video that has a very moral ground.
Feh, this coming from a transgendered homosexual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @07:28AM
I'm probably weird, but I had higher hopes for Men Going Their Own Way.
That was until I learned that being transgendered meant I was a communist feminist.
I was confused until I realized MGTOW is really just the same sexism I faced before. Being officially determined by a board to be a criminal not caught in the act yet... responsible for the actions of others... I think MGTOW by determining I'm a communist feminist the same as the feminist had determined I was a rapist rather invalidated their claim to not be sexist.
It's sad.
(Score: 2) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:33PM
Uh... What?
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:32PM
I read that as the AC saying that MGTOW is to women the same way that "Radical Feminism" is to men.
I.E. Both philosophies are highly sexist, view the opposite sex as some sort of collective enemy (holding the entire gender accountable for the actions of the few), and basically exist to provide an excuse to treat those of the other gender like dirt.
The fact that the AC is transgendered means that he/she gets mistreated just as badly from both sides.
As a note, I do wish the English language had a non-gender-specific third person singular pronoun instead of just "He" or "She". I guess "They" could work, but "They" has an implied plurality that is somewhat awkward.
(Score: 2) by GeminiDomino on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:32PM
Your parser is more resilient than mine, apparently. :) Thanks.
I never considered MGTOW to be inherently sexist in itself (which is not to say the bleating nitwits infesting the various forums are not), unlike feminism[0], or at least I never thought of it as such. It's just the rational conclusion of looking at the risks vs rewards to a sexist system - I don't think women are more or less likely to turn on, backstab, or taking advantage of someone than men are, but the way the legal system is (at least in the US), they do have the potential for greater single-target damage, particularly in the context of a relationship. Add in the actual social advancements women have made so that fewer people are feeling the requirement to get married in order to have a fulfilling relationship, and in the end, "getting hitched and settling down" becomes less compelling as a goal, especially if one's overcome the biological imperative to bring more kids into a fucked up world. It's got nothing to do with "womenz are teh evil," and plenty to do with "the law is a friggin' mess," at least in my case.
"Going my own way" doesn't mean "doing unto women before they do unto me," it just means not putting myself into a position where I have to sacrifice my self-determination. No putting up with ultimatums (ultimata?) or guilt trips, none of that bullshit; if both/all parties keep things honest about what they want from the get go and expectations stay reasonable, it can work out pretty well. I've been with the same woman for over 10 years now (half-gloating, half-preemptively fending off any PUA-conflation)
[0] Which is a completely different flamewar, only mentioned because of the comparison originally made.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"