Virtual Betrayal: A Form Of Infidelity, Self-deception Or An Outlet?

The likelihood that a person can cheat on a partner, depending on the duration of the relationship, varies between 40 - 70%. But, today people increasingly prefer to keep in touch through sites and chat applications instead of real dates, thanks to which a new form of infidelity began to spread rapidly: the virtual lover. There is a whole industry of sites serving people who, with constant real partners, are looking for virtual relationships on the side.

The content of the article

• 1 Acquaintance without meetings
• 2 The place of virtual romance in real relationships
• 3 Honesty is the best policy
• 4 Software flirting

According to a poll published by the extramarital dating site Gleeden, of its 27,000 users, 23% feel satisfied with their desire for cheating, thanks to an exclusively virtual connection without face-to-face meetings. Moreover, 69% of men and 47% of women surveyed do not consider online relationships to be cheating and a threat to their monogamous relationships.

Acquaintance without meetings

On Facebook, you can find numerous stories about virtual romances with people, interesting and pleasant until the moment it comes to a real meeting. After that, they disappear. Among these online lovers, a significant proportion of people with many years of family experience and children, as well as unmarried people who, behind the backs of their regular partners, when they are sleeping or absent, are in a distance relationship with someone else through applications. They are not going to develop their connections further than the Internet, but they do not want to do without them.

Solen Payet, director of communications at Gleeden, notes that an increasing number of people are looking exclusively for virtual meetings. She describes her site as a "secret garden" for people who lack emotional and spiritual contact with their spouses.

The place of virtual romance in real relationships 2

Most people would consider it cheating, but John Portmann, assistant professor at the University of Virginia and author of In Defense of Lust, does not. He says virtual relationships can be helpful: “I see these new types of infidelity as a safety valve in traditional monogamous relationships. They can be compared to the birth control pill, which prevents unwanted pregnancies. Only in this case, virtual betrayal insures against real infidelity or divorce."

In his essay Conversation Isn't Cheating, Portmann argues that if we assume that extramarital pranks no longer exist in real life, and sex outside of someone's relationship is just a high-tech flirtation that promotes healthy sexual relaxation, then in fact it is comparable to erotic literature. “Why not give such infidelity a place in a monogamous relationship? She preserves sexual exclusivity for a real partner and requires titanic power of imagination for a virtual one."

Honesty is the best policy3

Denise Knowles, a consultant for British charity Relate, argues that while the Internet has blurred the line between loyalty and infidelity, old-fashioned prim honesty wins. According to Knowles, Relate's consultants have seen numerous relationships broken up following exposure of one partner's online cheating.

“If you really need someone besides a real person with whom you would like to flirt on the Internet, discuss this with your regular partner. If you stick to certain boundaries, you may get permission, and it is possible that your half will want to do the same. But most importantly, be honest!”Says Denise Knowles.

Software flirting 4

After the recent hack of the fraudulent site Ashley Madison, information about the accounts of millions of its users was revealed. One aspect of the incident was the apparent lack of human activity, users of the dating site received mostly automated mailings, and the percentage of real contacts was extremely small. The technologies available to the general public are not yet perfect enough to create the full illusion of virtual novels. But some sites use bots (a special robot program) to give people looking for partners that they are communicating with real men and women.

Most often, bots do not manage to seem like people, but they improve and communicate with us in natural language more and more believably, intellectually studying our knowledge and behavior.

Since 2016, several major tech companies have introduced bot platforms that are touted as the next frontier in our interactions with services on the Internet. According to robotics engineer David Levy, we are at the dawn of a new sexual revolution, in which intelligent machines will romance us on the internet. In his dissertation "Intimate relationships with artificial partners," Levy writes that in a few years there will be sex bots that "possess complex intelligence, including encyclopedic knowledge and a lot of emotions."

I wonder when these programs will be introduced, will flirting with bots be considered cheating and treason? Will virtual interaction remain as attractive or will it seem meaningless to many?