Robot Girlfriend

I read that Sega is creating a line of robot girlfriends, which will be marketed to lonely men in Japan. I guess the robots will sort of be like those robot pets, in that they'll act cute and affectionate, but with these robots there's also a different kind of petting... these robots are apparently programmed to "make out" with their owners. The makers claim that the robot girlfriends "are not human but can act like a real girlfriend", which I suppose means they won't go past first base until you buy them dinner first.

Incredibly, they're planning to sell 10,000 of these units.

Obviously at first blush this seems like one of those odd "only in Japan" news items that we can all shake our heads and chuckle at. But you know we're not that far off in America either in our search for love... how about these $4000 massage chairs at Brookstones, aren't they too a sad plea in the dark for some affection, an attempt to program a machine to satisfy our most basic need, to be touched, a need that only another human can fulfill properly? Or television, which many people leave on all day just to hear the sound of another human voice, the same sound they've worked so hard escape from by living independent lives away from their families. The TV humans are different from real families though because these humans are trying to sell you something, and they don't care about you beyond that.

And I won't even go into details about those hand-held vibrating back massagers, but I'd assume a very small percentage of them are ever used on people's backs.

Modern society is starved for love, which was essentially the topic of my last post. Less industrialized societies, like India for example, abound with the things we crave in ours, just as our society abounds with the material luxuries they crave in theirs. It's a pity we can't find a way to have both.

But caring about someone, staying with them through thick and thin, having a true relationship, is painful... it's a huge sacrifice, you have to give up on many of your own goals and desires, and in a way I think part of the freedom of the American dream that people all over the world envy is the freedom from your family bonds, from any emotional bonds at all, really. That's because here each person is an individual above anything else, which means you do whatever the fuck you want, always. That's pretty cool! But it's also pretty hard for a lot of us to adjust to. And pretty lonesome, too.

I don't know that there's any great solution, but everywhere I look I see unmet needs clamoring for help.