From what I understand Cloud Girlfriend originally was supposed to be the equivalent of a virtual girlfriend that you could get emails from and have conversations with as if you were in a relationship with someone. The idea behind this was that you could chat away to someone safely, build your confidence and learn a little about social interaction in a fun, stress-free way.
Since the idea was formed, however, it seems to have changed into something a little different, where upon men and woman sign up, create an ‘alternative persona’ - including picking an alternative face from a gallery of very good looking people - scrolling through a list of things where you have to choose one or the other to define your persona’s personality (such as ‘books or films’). You write a little bit about ‘yourself’ and the sort of person you’re looking for before being set set free on a gallery of potential ‘dates’, each consisting of a picture of a beautiful person and the description of who they are and who they’re looking for.
Some other reviewers have suggested Cloud Girlfriend is like a game, and potentially you could meet your ideal match there, just as people have met their ideal match playing World of Warcraft, or Second Life.
- See the Cloud Girlfriend website.
I’ve had a quick poke around the Cloud Girlfriend website and I’m not really sure what to make of it. For one thing you find yourself confronted with the sorts of pictures you’d expect to find in glossy magazines, of models smiling at the camera, or else affecting a pose of some description. One of these you have to pick to represent yourself - and I really struggled to find one of these poster boys I thought captured my personality. I know, the idea is that you pretend to be someone else, but I’ve never been any good at pretending to be something other than what I am, even if I assume a different name and background. I settled for a monochrome picture of a blonde guy leafing through a book.
But next I was faced with a gallery of pictures of potential dates, who all looked like stunning models. Based on these amazing portraits and a few words of introduction from them, I was supposed to find someone that I might consider dating. Or rather a fictional woman that my fictional man might want to date. It doesn’t help that the gallery of people often contains duplicate images of the same model, who happen to have very different things to say. To me it kinda help underline the whole artificial nature of the ‘cloud’ partner.
I didn’t return to the site for a few days after creating my alternative persona, but when I did I’d had three date ‘invites’. I responded to one, opening up what looked like a chat window to begin conversing with someone, and left a message to say something along the lines of ‘I accept your invite’. And since then I’ve not had a response.
Perhaps I should begin another conversation, accept another date invitation. But I’m not sure I see the point in pursuing a fictional flirtation, pretending I’m a charming man on a date with a beautiful woman. I have flirted online in a fictional context before, but it was so much more about the seductive and poetic nature of words over the sort of catalogue model lifestyle Cloud Girlfriend seems to tap into. Even worse it seems that the site is taking on anyone at the moment. Some people seem to adopted entertaining, or even amusing personas, but some have not even bothered. Some look as if they’re just taking the piss.
But I think my greatest reservation is that all the time I could be devoting talking to another person online, talking to each other from behind glossy masks with no agenda other than to impress each other and, supposedly, arrange a fictional date, all this time I could actually be spent doing something productive like… I don’t know… talking to a real person (or at least talk to someone who at least is pretending to represent themselves) and flirt with a genuine person with a view to arranging a real life date. Seriously, if I wanted to flirt with a fictional person I know a lot more interesting places to do so, in much more depth.
In Conclusion: Cloud Girlfriend is not for me. You may have gathered that. For people looking for that special someone in their life it might help prompt ideas or build up some sort of confidence, but it seems to me a bit like sitting in a virtual car. You get to experience what it’s like to drive, but until you get into a real car you’re not actually moving anywhere at all.
