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Cyber Hope for Dateless Dudes?


cloudgirlfriend.JPGYou know the buzz that happens when someone changes their status to “in a relationship” on Facebook? Sometimes it’s like confetti and a bouquet of helium balloons were released over the Internet. It seems as if people almost ache for their single friends to find love.

Now even dateless men can have that “glory.”

The instigators of a new website, cloudgirlfriend.com, are planning to soon offer guys virtual “girlfriends” to interact with them in long-distance “relationships” via their favorite social media sites. For an as-of-yet unknown fee, a real-life person—under the guise of a man’s ideal woman—will send subscribers public messages, so others will watch and admire their “relationship” from afar.

People have probably been fabricating significant others since the dawn of time. I remember an episode of The Brady Bunch in which Jan made up “George Glass” to ease her insecurity when faced with Marsha’s guy-magnet fame. But to have an actual company aid and abet your lie through the Internet is something new, it would seem.

Why would a man do this?, some will ask. I think it’s because men want to feel valued and respected. Let’s face it. Our society has a tendency to base people’s value and identity on their dating or marital status (see virtually any teen movie for proof of this). And according to company cofounder David Fuhriman, if a man interacts with even an imaginary woman, it will make him feel as if he has a companion.

Fuhriman also told businessinsider.com he believes cloudgirlfriend.com has therapeutic value and can fulfill psychological needs such as intimacy. And he claims social networking interactions with a “girlfriend” can build self confidence and help users navigate real-life situations. Women, he says, will think, “Someone else thinks highly enough of this person to date him, so maybe I should too,” making it easier for men to get a flesh-and-blood girlfriend.

Note I said “get.” Keeping her might be another issue. I wouldn’t want to be around when a real-life woman discovers her boyfriend once typed sweet nothings to a chain-smoking dude in Cleveland named “Jessica.”

And as singles—men and women—are our self-worth and identity really that wrapped up in our Facebook relationship status?

I sincerely hope not.