Who needs a girlfriend when you got a cell phone?

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 From Wired News, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,40369,00.html

Japan's Men Date Hot, Sexy Bots 
by Michelle Delio 
2:00 a.m. Nov. 28, 2000 PST

At least 30,000 Japanese men are happily practicing their romantic
skills by attempting to virtually woo and win a girlfriend via a
mobile phone matchmaking service. 

Subscribers to the "Love By Mail" service get to choose their
girlfriend from a lineup of women that includes a bartender, a flight
attendant, an office worker and a teacher. Once they've made a
selection, they can begin to date the woman via e-mail.    

But Love By Mail participants don't simply exchange giggly e-mails
that rapidly escalate to more graphic love letters. 

The men must carefully gauge their romantic moves. Those who promise
too much or don't move fast enough won't impress their woman, and will
get bitter e-mails in response. Likewise, those who attempt to talk
about sports or offer excuses about needing to work too often will
also get the cold shoulder from their new love. 

Successful seducers are rewarded by increasingly romantic e-mails from
their sweetheart, in which she gradually reveals her "most intimate
secrets." 

But there is one catch -– the women the men are corresponding with are
nothing more than pre-programmed computer scripts. 

That doesn't seem to bother Love By Mail's intrepid subscribers. 

"I dated Yumi for awhile, and I have to confess I became very attached
to her," said Wataru Uchida of Tokyo. "It was hard sometimes to
remember that Yumi wasn't real. She would yell at me and ignore me the
exact same way as all my other girlfriends have. 

"I thought a not-real girlfriend would be more relaxing than the usual
kind, but I was wrong. Yumi could get very angry over small things.
Finally I decided to stop the relationship. It was too draining for
me," Uchida said. 

Another Love By Mail user, who preferred not to give his name, had a
more successful relationship with his bogus babe. In fact, their
romance was so successful that he said the experience of dating a
virtual girlfriend was almost like having a mistress. 

"You have the happiness of a secret woman, a hidden relationship, with
none of the fear that your wife will find out and be angry. My
grandfather had the geisha, my father had the bar hostesses and I have
Love By Mail. It is maybe hard for others to understand, but these
substitutes, or additions, for the everyday relationship between a
husband and wife are well accepted in our culture." 

Love By Mail was developed by Bandai, the Japanese toy company that
manufactured Tamagotchi, the squalling electronic pets that were so
popular a few years ago. 

The company says that more than 30,000 Japanese men have signed up for
Love By Mail, available only to i-mode subscribers. I-mode is a mobile
Internet service offered by NTT DoCoMo, available only in Japan. The
service has close to 13 million subscribers. 

I-mode, which stands for "Information mode," gives subscribers across
Japan always-on, inexpensive (about $5 a month for basic service),
wireless access to the Internet. 

Sites developed for i-mode use cHTML (compact HTML), a subset of the
HTML coding used to create typical Web pages. There are also special
DoCoMo coding characters to create icons that represent concepts such
as joy, kisses, sadness, hot spring baths, noodle shops, the
Shinkansen train line and Japanese holidays.  
Subscribers to i-mode can download images of cartoon characters,
weather reports, news and entertainment listings. But the most popular
services are the ones that allow people to interact with each other,
or those that provide advice, said Donald Edwards, a freelance writer
based in Tokyo who specializes in covering Japanese popular culture. 

I-mode offers a service called "kind advice" about love, which
promises guidance on everything from what to wear on a date to how to
act in a restaurant. You can also check predictions for the success of
the relationship based on your date's horoscope and blood type. 

There are also i-mode advice services for those who are having trouble
at work, those who don't know what to do after work and those who
can't figure out proper golf course etiquette, Edwards said. 

"There's even one that lets you recreate your school years, except
that this time you can be one of the popular kids," Edwards said,
adding he wasn't surprised by the popularity of Love By Mail. 

"It's a safe way for men to try out their dating technique without
having to worry about shaming themselves in front of a live girl," he
said. "The Love By Mail service is extremely realistic. So it's sort
of practice dating, and Japanese people are very interested in
practicing things. Doing a trial run in the virtual world makes sense
culturally; this way, they don't have to embarrass themselves or
others in the real world. It's actually a very kind and compassionate
sort of etiquette." 

Bandai wouldn't release subscriber statistics, but Edwards says
Japanese press has estimated that most Love By Mail subscribers'
relationships end within three or four months. Subscribers pay ¥300
per month (just under $2) for their virtual girlfriend subscriptions.


I-mode has become so popular that many Japanese companies advertise on
it, or gear their advertising to it, as a recent Dakara sports drink
ad did with an advertising campaign on Tokyo subways. 

"I am waiting for the liquor ads that advise you to drown your sorrows
over the end of your Love By Mail relationship with a bottle of their
product," Edwards said with a laugh.  

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