The pixellated male figure stared at me, a thought bubble from his mouth said, ‘Caress my leg’. I dragged my mouse up and down his leg and the figure replied in Helvetica bold, ‘Not so hard.’ As I moved on the Dating Simulation Game, dragging lips on various pixellated body parts to ‘kiss’, and clicking my mouse to ‘touch’, several sex-educational questions were asked as part of the game. One said, ‘Do you know that during sex, the ability to hold onto rhythm is very important? Show it by pressing one button then another.’ No matter, how frantically I tried the man didn’t seem to like it. When asked if I love him, I quickly replied ‘yes’ – not wanting to give the wrong answer. Immediately the response was: ‘How can you love me, I’m not real?’ Wow, a reality check in a virtual world.

Welcome to the world of anime (a Japanese style of motion-picture animation, characterised by colourful art, futuristic settings, violence and sexuality): one of 21st century Japan’s greatest exports. There’s no need to worry about the online perverts your mother warned you against, the characters you will be ‘dating’ are virtual. Kiss them, speak to them, hold them and if you want, even marry them. SAL9000, a Japanese gamer, met character Nene Anegasaki while playing the dating simulation game Love Plus by Konami for Nintendo DS. They got married a few months ago, broadcasting their ceremony live on Nico Nico Douga, Japan’s version of video-sharing website YouTube.

Travelling at less than two mbps back in India, I still struggle to escape from the Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD, and if you haven’t guessed it yet Twitter addiction is TAD). My days are now 140-characters long, constantly changing – they are sometimes longer since Facebook allows it. A typical day has two halves: online and offline. My offline hours are spent wondering if anyone has replied to my status message, clicking pictures meant to be uploaded on Facebook and constantly using my GPRS to check for updates.

Seirian Sumner, a research fellow in evolutionary biology, Zoological Society of London, recently commented on a web journal, Edge.org, ‘The data we happily give away on Facebook is exactly the sort of information that communist secret police sought through interrogation.’ I gather a modern day Camus’ Meursault would have never suffered from any existential angst. Rather, he would have been a Twitter hero! It’s in vogue to dry our underwear in the sun, to have blogs on sexual escapades, to rant about daily happenings and finally search for the potential love of our lives on the Internet. Pimping lifelong relationships, bandwagons like matrimonial sites are now the beacon of hope for a hapless Bridget Jones. For now however, before our skin starts wrinkling and reproductive organs start withering, lost in a real world of fake orgasms and relationships, we seek solace in Second Life and contenders.

During my recent vacation, one night between Farmville games and Gtalk chats, I discovered www.smallworlds.com. SmallWorlds is a virtual world that runs inside your web browser, without the need to download or install any other software (something like Second Life). I spent an average of seven hours on the game (11 p.m. to 5 a.m.) every night. In the seven hours, I would marry a 14-year-old (with three witnesses) from Yorkshire, spend ‘private moments’ in his ‘apartment’, chat with three or more men and women (all in the age group of 11-27) in hot tubs, go on dates to virtual art galleries, go on missions and even dance a little.

All this while I continued Gtalk chatting and Facebooking on the other browser tabs.
For Japan, however, things are a little further into the future. At 160 megabytes per second, they can post, watch and download high-quality media and multitask more easily. With a Nintendo tucked into every pocket, your virtual girlfriends travel with you and stay close the whole day. An instant escape from the ever-growing bubble of loneliness, these women yearn for you…you are a confident lover with no fear of being rejected or cheated. As if, the so-called 2-D love (a subculture of Japanese men who seek romantic relationships with illustrations of their ideal partners, sometimes in the form of manga or anime characters, doll-like figurines or even life-sized portable pillows featuring a drawing of the object of their affection) wasn’t enough. Here’s to the inevitable Die Verwandlung!

In this Kafkaseque world of faux copulation and pixelated affection, there is a generation of the hikikomori – socially withdrawn youth who seclude themselves in their rooms, often not emerging for 13 years at a time – shutting out the dystopian world to indulge in the safe embrace of virtual longing. And as discovered by The New York Times, there are a million of them.

Roland Nozomu Kelts, the author of Japanamerica, wrote in an article in the Vancouver-based magazine Adbusters, ‘Divorced from the very human responsibility to contact and interact directly with other living beings, we may feel hollowed out, emptied of the sense of an evolving self that can make existence worth its painful bouts of adversity and growth. A life spent lurking too long in the shadows of the virtual world might turn out to be no life at all.’

I am wary of the web only because of its vastness. It is frightening in its ability to metamorphose human beliefs. Ten years ago one didn’t think of marrying someone who didn’t exist. Today it is happening. I would like to put my finger on loneliness, and whatever it is that you want to blame. It is true that it is the very real world that is driving us to shut it out and belong to one which doesn’t exist. Is reality that unliveable?

GET YOUR GROOVE ON...ONLINE

Smallworlds.com If hot tubs, 11-year-olds and gaming are what gets you going, this is the site for you.

Secondlife.com If you don’t know about Second Life, then… my dear, you don’t belong to Earth (be happy, the planet is dying anyway!)

Omegle.com Perfect for an entire generation suffering from ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), Omegle lets you chat with strangers without the frills of general chatting sites. It involves only one blinking cursor on a white window and one person named Stranger.

Lovebitten.net and Vampersonals.com For the Edward Cullen in you, go find your Bella! Works also for human dating site rejects.

Socialnetworking.in Standard dating portal – I mean with all the fancy stuff floating around, why would you want plain Jane vanilla?

Subscribe to Verve Magazine or buy the Verve issue on stands now!