Dating apps? Nah! The metaverse is full of people looking for love!
If you’re single, you’ve probably already noticed that the pandemic upended the way we meet people and date. The rise of online dating apps like Tinder and Bumble is a testament to this fact. But there’s another way technology is changing our ability to find love, and it’s called virtual reality (VR).
Virtual reality could transform how we experience dating apps, making them more intimate than ever before. Ready to take your love life into cyberspace? Read on!
Dating apps and virtual reality dating
Think of dating apps in the metaverse as a parallel to the apps we use in real life when navigating the singles scene.
Dating apps are a way of meeting people in the real world. They’re a way to find common interests and values, as well as someone you might have fun with on a Saturday night.
Dating in the metaverse is no different, it’s just that there are many more options for finding both partners and activities than there are in the real world. You can use dating apps to find someone with similar interests or someone who shares your passion for fixing cars, painting landscapes or playing video games. You can even use them to find like-minded gamers that want to go on quests together!
The first dating app was in fact a virtual reality dating app
Let’s talk about Second Life. Created by Linden Lab back in 2003, Second Life was one of the first virtual worlds to become popular. It featured a 3D environment where users could explore and interact with other users within. Users were able to create their own avatars and customize them as they saw fit; these avatars had varying degrees of success depending on what people wanted them for.
Some users used their avatars as virtual representations of themselves, and some even went so far as creating an avatar based on how they looked when they were in high school (before gaining weight/having kids/going grey.)
But for all its potential for creating unique experiences within this new digital realm, Second Life wasn’t designed for dating specifically and yet, 10% of its users had made some sort of romantic connection through the program!
Love in the Metaverse. Virtual reality is the perfect fit for dating apps
Why? Well, there are a few reasons:
- Virtual reality is the future of dating. It’s true that virtual reality will soon be mainstream and has been around long enough to have some great technology that can really take your online dating experiences to new heights.
- Virtual spaces are safe for dating. This means that you won’t have any awkward conversations or get rejected in person when using an app like this, a very good thing!
- Dating apps are much easier to use in VR than real-life ones because they’re simpler and more intuitive, and there’s less of a learning curve involved when using them.
While VR dating may not be a replacement for real-world romance, it can be more intimate in some ways. This is because there are fewer distractions and barriers in VR than there are in the real world. You don’t need to put on makeup or worry about your hair falling out of place; you don’t have to dress up or go through an awkward small talk at the bar before getting down to business. Instead, you’re free to get right into the heart of things and find yourself connecting with another person in a meaningful way which is more complicated outside of virtual reality.
VR dates could last longer
In the metaverse, you can spend as much time as you want to get to know someone. You don’t have to worry about having enough time for an in-person date or a phone call—there’s no such thing as “running out” of minutes on your cell phone plan anymore. You’ll never be late to meet them because of traffic or an accident on the road; no sunlight means more hours in the day! These features mean that VR dates could last longer than their real-world counterparts.
Also, since there are no physical limitations keeping people apart (like distance), virtual reality makes it possible for people who live far away from each other to connect and interact easily in the virtual world. This can lead to more intimate moments between partners, making them feel closer than ever before!
Tinder in Fortnite
If you’re familiar with Tinder, the dating app, then you probably understand how it works. You log onto the app and swipe right on someone’s profile if you think they’re attractive or swipe left if you don’t like them. If both users like each other, it’ll be a match!
The same goes for Fortnite. You log into your Battle Royale account and…well…you play Fortnite with other players from around the world in real-time combat while building structures to defend yourself against enemies who will try to kill them.
In Tinder, matches can happen randomly by swiping right/left depending on whether people find each other attractive enough based on their pictures alone without actually knowing each other. In Fortnite on the other hand, players don’t have any way of direct communication, outside of playing together within their virtual world. There aren’t any actual conversations happening outside its digital confines except during moments when one player kills another by shooting them down repeatedly until death takes hold.
This makes people connect in a different way. You get to know someone from a different angle and share your everyday problems with them without the aspiration of flirting. All this process allows you to fall in love with the person, their character, their jokes, and their personality and not with a sexy picture (as you do in Tinder).
We could say, dating in the metaverse is not as superficial as it can be on Tinder, Grinder or Bumble.
Again, the metaverse is full of people looking for love, and virtual reality is a perfect fit for dating apps!
Ultimately, the metaverse is giving online dating an upgrade and it’s expected that in the coming years dating in the metaverse will be the new normal.
