site maintenance: This is going to take a while. Excuse the mess while we update the website.
You are here: /commentary/virtual-girlfriend
People have different values, interests, cultures, and behaviors. For some people dating is a big part of being human and for others, its a very small portion of their overall lifespan. If they are not having children its a very low priority, and a higher priority is managing hormones, lowering sex drive, and not giving off attractant pheromones when out with friends, at the gym, or anywhere in public.
This presents a context for society interested in genetic diversity. Non consesual peer pressure induced sex participation, is not a good conversation to have with a psychologist. Regardless of whether birth control was used or not, forcing someone that comes from a low sex drive gene pool to breach their cognitive firewall in order to make friends has questionable socialization merits. More often, people will want to open a port for specific traffic, and there might still be a password or screening process.
The virtual girlfriend presents a nice compromise and has a history of high scale data points to build on. It includes concepts from cyber interfaces, online dating, regular dating, and friendship sites that have no requirement of intimacy.
The internet moves a lot faster than normal life for most people. Spending 5 years on the internet may feel like going from 1750 to the year 2000 if the person is on the right sites. Mostly learning sites that are respectful and have play pens to test or exchange culture expressions that may be offensive, rude, disrespectful, or unkown. These playpens give constructive feedback without prejudice such as that was rude, or we can get in trouble with our gene group for having those behaviors.
Overall, this works really well, allows a good amount of expression, and has a safety point to express discomfort and opt for a different group. Few people, have to go to therapy to learn how to change behaviors because they end up with no friends.
The virtual girlfriend builds on this by allowing people to build relationship skills. The concern is site managers and platform hosts that breach confidentiality or assume the role of a virtual girlfriend and cause damage to the platform. This can end up really bad for a person learning relationship skills and is made fun of by an internet expert who wanted to have a little fun with the users.
The goal is that a virtual girlfriend can be a computer algorithms, AI, or an actual person behind an avatar or video profile. A video profile might for example use up to 15-16 similar looking girls with a relationship notebook to teach the user how to be a good first boyfriend and to have realistic play with things like anger, jealousy, time schedules, and diet.
There is no restriction on kissing or taking things further as long as everything is consensual. There should be a protocol for requesting that someone no longer contact a virtual girlfriend, and that request should be respected. This is a whole different conversation on contacting exes, moving forward, working through emotional distress, and finding new interests in life.
One of the goals is that this is organic, it can involve multiple platforms, maybe the virtual girlfriend has 5 social media accounts, and is 2-3 gaming platforms, plus she might have a video profile or a blog.
This allows people to experience dating in a virtual environment that might be more time convenient, no commute. It might be less cost consuming, no specific dress code, and it might be more relaxing, right from home, in the car, or in a quiet office at work outside of work hours.
There are no restrictions on meeting in person. That is strictly up to the virtual couple to decide consensually. It can be combined with a dating app or multiple dating apps. This is for those in a relationship to decide.
The concept arose with guys, with the consent and advice of girls. Lots of guys, possibly the majority, don't feel comfortable with casual dating and it presents a conundrum. If people don't casual date, how will they meet anyone besides their family, their co-workers, or someone from school? What about someone that works at a different company, goes to a different school, or lives in another city but is pretty similar and cute.
There could be virtual boyfriends, but girls are usually the more nurturing ones, as an average, this is changing. Girls are usually the ones to decide if they will go out with someone or not, if they will think about it, and if they need to ask their friends if they feel they are ready to go out yet, or to go out again. They also usually cant ask a boy to go out, or they are shy about asking.
It would be possible to have virtual boyfriends, but the girls would have to be comfortable asking the boys if its ok to hang out with them. Some girls ask questions like "would you want me as a girlfriend?" or "Do you think I'd make a good girlfriend?" and "are you dating anyone or are you single?". Some guys take a really long time to understand a hint however, or they think the girl is asking about somebody else, like as a third party opinion.
All kinds of things are going virtual. Work, school, family visits, pre-traveling, and even apartment tours. Virtual Relationships are most likely the next phase of human evolution. People have been talking on the phone before they go on date for a very long time. Then there were homepages and social media networks. Things stalled for a bit with dating apps and privacy profiles on social media. With more open platforms, and less restrictions on meeting in person if desired, the virtual relationship may be ready for comment by people seeking new friends.