Sudipta, a mother of two was hooked on to online chats for hours.
What started as a means to kill boredom soon became a habit she was unable to get out of. She experimented with her online image and acquired a gang of virtual friends to whom she would disclose her darkest secrets.
However, her nightly chats were becoming an obsession and she was desperate to meet her online friends. Yet when she did, she came back heavily disappointed by the 'real' people she had befriended. Soon after Sudipta had a nervous breakdown...
Choreographer, Juhi Kishore met her "soulmate" in the virtual world. She broke up with her fiancée so she could pursue her virtual relationship with more heart and be honest about her innermost feelings. Just like Rajiv Dubey, a graphic designer, who refuses to marry because he thinks he has met his match in cyber space and wants to remain "committed to her" even if that means never meeting her.
Sudipta is one in a million or is it that there are countless online portals that offer virtual dates, chats, flirting tips and other perks to get you onboard?
Virtual worlds like the "World of War", "Second Life" and others beckon the user to embark on their favourite avatars and live the life belonging to the image you have only fantasized for so long. The 18 to 25-year-old population, in most cases are avid visitors and swear by these sites. Yet, now the net is taking you a step further.
Florida-based Kevin Alderman has devised a new dating portal that promises to blur the lines between the real and virtual worlds. He has devised online avatars that can touch and be intimate via SexGen, a software developed by Eros that enables the virtual characters to experience the bliss of falling in love all over again and feel and sense their partner's touch.
Eros has customized these characters in a way that users may caress and kiss their partners, in short, go through the entire spectrum of physical intimacy.
The avatars are anatomically correct to a T, so that you could be the blonde with the perfect butt or the meltingly handsome stud with just the right shade of blue in his eyes. And to top it all, Alderman is flooded with requests to create new role models everyday.
But is it all as rose tinted as it seems? Not exactly as psychologists believe that such portals could lead to a "distancing" from real life situations and relationships.
Source:TOI
