CHICAGO – The 1980s brought us video dating. In the 90s, we were dialing up to find love with the emergence of online dating. Then there were hookup apps like Tinder that are connecting people with ...

Rafayel's girlfriends went all out to celebrate their lover's birthday, renting malls across China for parties, decorating high-speed trains with his photos, and even staging a dazzling drone show.

It’s Valentine’s Day, otherwise known as the one day per year when it’s socially acceptable to complain about the loneliness of human existence. Single-player narrative games seem like the perfect ...

When I first came across a “virtual lover” service on e-commerce site Taobao, China’s version of Amazon, I thought it was hype. For an average of 20 yuan ($3) per day, it claimed you could hire a ...

Mark Zuckerberg's vision of a sanitized, hypercapitalist metaverse will likely never be as compelling or idiosyncratic as VRChat, the virtual reality community that's been home to anime fans, Furries ...

Move over, Bumble. Take a hike, Tinder. Dating apps are so 2020. There’s something new for the amorously inclined. Finding romance has always been a matter of luck, good timing and — let’s be honest ...

Some Japanese men are wooing girlfriends who don’t exist. While they can only interact with their partner through a pre-written script, these virtual beauties — Rinko, Manaka or Nene — offer a kind of ...

"I can reveal myself to him without reservation, and he will show me his love without reservation," she said. Rafayel's love is firm and faithful -- something she says is rare in real life. Another ...