Virtual reality might save my long-distance relationship
The most romantic place I’ve ever been was a grassy hill overlooking a campground. It was late evening; lit-up tents and cabins dotted the valley that sprawled before us. In the distance, stood a black mountain range, the bright edges of the northern lights peering out from behind. I was surrounded by the warm night, a waxing gibbous moon, a canopy of stars.
At least, that’s what it felt like. In reality, I was sitting in the corner of a New York City office, wearing an Oculus Rift headset.
This was my first experience with Facebook Spaces, Facebook’s new virtual reality platform, and for long-distance couples, like me and my boyfriend, I think it could change everything.
Social virtual reality has so far been marketed around hanging out with friends, but my initial experience with the technology showed me that it can be a way to fill the hole I feel sinking inside me whenever my boyfriend and I are apart.
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I am happy to Skype, or talk on the phone, or Facebook chat with my close friends and family to maintain our relationships. But I’ve never felt the same physical craving for a friend that I have with romantic partners, the overpowering desire to be physically close, to touch.
My boyfriend is in a PhD program at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and I am working in New York. Every Friday, one of us makes the four-hour trek to the other's ramshackle shoebox apartment.
Being apart is painful. We are in constant communication over Facebook, text, Skype (when we get around to it), and the various text platforms that online games have. He doesn’t own a VR headset because, and I quote, “I have as many VR headsets as there are good games for them.” But he agrees there’s something vastly impersonal about other forms of digital communication, such that even when we are sharing our deepest secrets through a screen, I long for something more. Facebook Spaces could be that something more.
My journey within Facebook Spaces began on Main Street of what looked like Disneyland. It was early evening, and the sidewalk was glossy, reflecting the street lamps as if it had recently rained.
Image: facebook
My tour guide was the avatar of a spokesperson from Facebook’s public relations team, joining me from California. The first thing she did was withdraw a virtual pencil from somewhere mysterious and draw an orange fish in the sky above her head. She plucked it out of the air and placed it in front of me, where it hung like a picture frame on an invisible wall. It occurred to me, then, how cringeworthy, but adorable it would be if I handed my boyfriend a horribly drawn rose on our anniversary, or if I wrote “I love you” in the air in front of his face in virtual reality.
Our next destination was a campground, spread beneath a black sky. Beautiful music played, music I wanted desperately to slow dance to. This was not a place to dart around corners and shoot things, the experiences for which VR is widely known. This was a place of beautiful intimacy, a place to be at peace.
My tour guide began to explain to me the mechanics of the platform, the potential it had to revolutionize the rising-but-struggling VR sphere, but all I could focus on was how real she looked. Her avatar blinked, her eyes and eyebrows fluidly guided her face as it transitioned through expressions. I didn’t just feel like she was there: She was there, with me, in the glowing virtual wilderness. I still, today, believe I could have touched her. (I actually tried. My hand went through her, because of course it did.) The togetherness that long-distance couples crave, I realized, could be found in this place.
I see a world with VR dates to virtual mountains, boardwalks, skyscrapers, hot air balloon rides (I took one — don’t do it if you get motion sick), and anywhere else you and your significant other can imagine. I see a world where a button on Tinder sends you and your match directly to a cruise ship, and you make small talk while identifying whales (or whatever it is one does on a cruise).
In some ways, these dates will be unrealistic, in that everyone will embody an idealized version of themselves, one that is skinny, attractive, and regularly visits campgrounds and Disneyland. But isn’t that kind of how relationships are anyway, in their early stages? We put on makeup and dress up for those we are courting. Anyone I've taken on a first date has seen a virtual Monica: a pleasant, agreeable version of me. But in VR, I can present my virtual self to people who are thousands of miles away.
Will VR make me disillusioned with the real world, the way my baby-boomer parents fear? Perhaps. When I took off the headset and emerged into a white, barren office, I felt heavy. Even now, weeks after my experience, I remember it in detail. I want to go back. In high school, I had a brief relationship with a teen on the opposite coast, entirely over AOL Instant Messenger. Had we been able to spend time together in Facebook Spaces, I probably would have disappeared into VR and never come out.
Image: facebook
But is that so wrong? My mom used to limit my phone and computer time when I was younger, claiming that while I stared at the screen, I was isolated from those around me.
But social VR isn’t a disconnect. It’s a new, heightened connection. It’s a connection not tethered by proximity, one we can define and shape into whatever we want it to be. Now that he’s heard of the potential of social VR, even my cynical gamer boyfriend is excited.
And of course, to the most important question: Can the avatars adequately simulate getting it on? This wasn't part of my demonstration and the avatars technically end below the torso, but, I think love birds could find a way.
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