I haven't really paid much attention to the concept before, but as the nature of dating changes under the pressure of technology in society, virtual dating seems to be gaining more of a foothold.

Virtual dating caught my attention when I found out that the dating site Weopia has begun offering virtual dating as an intermediate step between finding someone on the site and going out on a flesh-and-blood date.

What makes Weopia different from emailing or IMing before a first date is how it guides you through the virtual date, helping you to get to know each other. There are videos, conversation ideas, and questions to talk about, all of which you can experience together using voice and text chat (all done via Skype). If a date's going well, you can talk and discuss plans for a real-life, offline date. If it's going poorly, one click ends the date.

VentureBeat describes the experiences as eHarmony meets World of Warcraft.

Of course, virtual worlds have always had this kind of relationship component. Second Life's relationship component has made news on a few occasions. Back in 2008 a guy in the UK left his wife for a woman he met in Second Life (Daily Mail, CNN) and in 2009 another woman in the UK asked for a divorce after catching her husband in a gay affair in Second Life (H Post).

And then there are sites (like IMVU) where virtual dating seems to be the only point.

Weopia's move to offer virtual dating as a step toward physical world dating simple serves to further blur the line between virtual worlds and the flesh-and-blood world. Whether that's good or bad I'll leave to my reads…

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