I Want To Look Into You Computer-Generated Eyes…
Of all of the areas that indicate just how prevalent the internet has become in the early 21st century, people could argue that perhaps the one that showed many society’s new norms was online dating.
Once the provenance of “nerds” or those who couldn’t get a date the old fashioned way, there was a time, not even that long ago, where admitting that you met your partner on the internet would be no different than directly inviting ridicule. Now however, it seems it’s almost rare to meet a romantic couple who didn’t meet either on a dating app or some other social device, the old school ways of meeting cute having long been displaced by the wonders of technology.
Naturally you can now add virtual reality to this list of wonders and its potential on online dating may be just as revolutionary as the idea of meeting a potential mate on the computer was two decades ago. In fact, it’s possible that virtual reality may even remove what for many was the ultimate goal of online dating – meeting a match face-to-face.
The immersive presence of virtual reality can be an overpowering one, especially when it involves interacting with other users in the virtual space. It’s exactly this kind of feeling that social providers like Facebook Spaces of AltspaceVR are trying to capture and it’s hard not to imagine online dating services wanting a part of the action.
Being able to go on a virtual date does probably solve some problems for online daters, whether it’s logistical difficulties, physical distance between the daters or just a question of making daters feel safe. The question of course is whether this feeling of immersion is enough to counter the kinds of butterflies first daters get when they meet someone for the first time. It’s an answer that obviously depends on the individual and is likely something that many industries are keen to jump onto, especially those who, like dating, play on the emotions of the heart.
For those who are still interested in real life human contact, like many other virtual reality experiences, VR can bring a training element to dating and there’s an app on the HTC Vive called Dating Lessons which attempts to coach those who are still new to it.
But unlike many other forms of virtual training such as flying or surgery, the lessons the app is trying to teach do seem easier to do in real life, where failure isn’t the end of the world, even if, for some people, the failure of a first date is pretty similar to it.