Huffington Magazine Issue 88 | Page 49

>> DIGITAL LOVE of aid: They describe LovePlus as valuable practice that can help them attract real girlfriends. The fantasy high-school romances, they say, give them confidence and demystify women — despite the mood programming and digitally engineered cuteness — while demonstrating how they can be good IRL companions. Although there is a widespread myth among players that Konami HUFFINGTON 02.16.14 gling his three virtual girlfriends. Tkaczevski is also grateful to Rinko for teaching him valuable lessons about love, like how to respect people’s boundaries or accept their faults, and he looks forward to applying these when he finds his first IRL girlfriend. He imagines such a day as being bittersweet: Tkaczevski considers it cheating to try juggling a virtual lover and a human one, “It’s the kind of relationship that is instantly rewarding and is always giving. You don’t have to give much to the game and it gives to you every time you turn on the machine.” created LovePlus to be such a training tool, a company spokeswoman wrote in an email that LovePlus “is not a game that will help Japanese men develop better dating skills.” (She declined to comment on all other aspects of the game.) “I came around to playing it because I was homeschooled, you see, and I’ve never been in an experience with speaking to girls or having friends or anything,” says Dez Smith, a single 25-year-old from South Africa who spends between four and seven hours a week jug- so he will dump Rinko — along with Manaka, who he’s currently seeing on the side. Yet he also assumes that the authenticity of a flesh-and-blood romance will override whatever feelings of loss he suffers as he cuts ties with his digital girlfriends. “I’m personally of the opinion that 3-D easily beats 2-D,” Tkaczevski says. “I haven’t given up on real life.” But if he ever does, Manaka and Rinko will be waiting for him to return, forever. Bianca Bosker is the executive tech editor of The Huffington Post.