As IF Times

link Only in Japan, Real Men Go to a Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends – WSJ.com.

No one listens to me.  For the longest time now, kids have been allowed to immerse themselves into the artificial worlds of cyber gaming and cyber life.  This is done to the exclusion of real life pursuits required of what would be considered a normal upbringing.  How many young people today aren’t displaying  their lives on facebook or some other virtual social site? If this trend continues, we may eventually witness  here what is now happening in Japan.

Apparently in Japan, the results of such artificial existence is showing up in the weirdest way, even by Japanese standards.  In thinking about this phenomenon, it was hard to come up with a conclusion as to why it should exist at all.  By all accounts,  if the men were willing to go through such extreme lengths to experience the virtual girlfriend experience you would think they would be attentive partners in real life.   One poor guy, a Mr. Kato has this experience,

“…his girlfriend, Manaka, was giving him the silent treatment. She was upset that he had been so busy at work that he had been playing the game only 10 minutes a day. “On days off, I spend one to two hours with her. I guess, compared to the people who come here, our relationship is a bit lukewarm,” said Mr. Kato…”

As well,

“…Players are expected to remember important dates like birthdays and holidays…”

Really, why inflict grief upon yourself from a virtual person if you didn’t have to?  This may have something to do with cultural expectations, ie: if you’re in a relationship, there must be grief and suffering.  Hmm.

On the other hand, if there is nothing but benign interaction, there would be no fun and challenge to the role playing game.  After all, who wants to win a game easily?  As far as we can see from the article, it’s only men playing the virtual companion game, there’s no mention of any women.    Although, come to think of it, there wouldn’t be much in the way of interaction with a virtual boyfriend.  You call him up on the screen, he’s either not there, sleeping, out with his buddies or golfing.  Guess that’s not too challenging.