As great as being in a relationship is, having a partner can be pretty high maintenance sometimes. You have to plan your social life around them, spend tons of money on dates and gifts, and - worst of all - you're not allowed to watch their favorite Netflix show without them. Up until recently, the solution to this problem was simple: don't date. If you don't feel motivated enough to put time and effort into someone else's happiness, the chances are that you're caught up in a relationship that won't work anyway. However, in this glitzy 21st-century life of virtual reality and AI, some genius techy folks have come up with an alternative option for singletons who can't hack a conventional relationship - and it comes in the form of a video game. Bizarre though it may seem, 'dating simulators' are a real thing in which lonely hearts can begin a 'relationship' with an anime-style avatar. Although they're primarily marketed as games, there are thousands of users out there who consider themselves to have a genuine connection with their virtual other-half. In many cases, the individuals who get themselves into these kinds of set-ups give up on looking for a 'real' relationship altogether, because the video game version gives them just as much satisfaction - and requires hardly any as much effort. In fact, there has already been at least one instance of a person marrying their virtual lover. In 2009, a 27-year-old man was legally wed to 'Nene', a character from one of the most popular dating simulators, Love Plus. This alone seems strange enough, but when you consider that thousands of other people consider themselves to be in a relationship with the exact same character, it starts to get even weirder. If you've seen the film 'Her' starring Joaquin Phoenix, you'll have a rough idea of what it's like. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/rube_na00/status/931284212765749248]] The trend started in Japan way over a decade ago, but has reached millions of users all over the globe. Some players meet regularly to go on group dates with their pixellated partners, whereas others aren't so keen to share. One man, Yuuya Iwama, gave details in an interview about how he interacts with his girlfriend, Manaka. "I’ve been dating Manaka for one year and five months," he said. "She is very cute but the most attractive feature is how difficult it is. I have to reply to emails. She gets upset if I’m late for dates. "I want to please her when she pesters me for kisses. But I don’t begrudge the effort because it helps make us closer. It makes me feel as if she can’t live without me, which is what charms me most." And the games aren't just for men, either - a significant number of dating simulators have been released with women in mind, and focus more on the courting part of the relationship rather than the serious, settled-down part of couplehood. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/motoyasu2727/status/929835984212058113]] In an attempt to understand those who choose to have relationships with a bunch of pixels and code, two people named Loulou d’Aki and Roland Fischer spent a month interviewing dating sim users in Tokyo. Many people were reluctant to be photographed for the interviews, implying that a lot of them still feel embarrassment over the subject, but d'Aki and Fischer still managed to learn a lot from the project. According to them, some players see the simulators as nothing more than a standard video game, with their 'partner' being just a standard character. However, some users took the game extremely seriously and spoke about their digital other halves as if they were made of flesh and blood. After speaking to enough people, though, d'Aki began to understand why the trend is so popular. “I guess the appeal about the love game might be the frictionless relations one can have with the virtual girlfriend,” she said. “It is a dreamy and very innocent type of relation.” [[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLUGDUwXyLw]] Some people fear that Japanese people's reluctance to date, compounded with their enthusiasm for dating games, could end up leading to a decline in the country's population. So, while it may seem like a fairly harmless (if not a little abnormal) trend, it could spell the end for real romance in the future.

The internet has been left flabbergasted by a woman's brutal response to a man asking her out for an ice cream.

The dating scene can be rough at times, as meet cutes have quickly been replaced with apps where you mindlessly swipe at people, hoping for a connection.

What is deemed a good date can differ from person to person, and everyone has different expectations of what they want in a partner.

But who knew that ice cream could be so divisive when it comes to dating?

An invite to go and get ice cream did not go as planned. Credit: Sally Anscombe/Getty

Taking to the Tinder subreddit on Reddit, one unlucky man called Vance revealed some text messages that showed that he was brutally rejected... all because he wanted ice cream.

"I guess ice cream dates are considered a terrible idea nowadays," Vance's caption read - and he has the evidence to support it.

The pair had met on Tinder and the conversation progressed over to swapping phone numbers, and the hopeful romantic messaged his potential partner saying who he was.

After she replied, he mustered the courage to ask her out on a date, making sure to be respectful and giving her the option of being picked up or meeting at the location if she wasn't comfortable being in a car with him.

Noting that the weather had been particularly hot, Vance asked his potential date whether she'd want to go and get ice cream, which seems pretty reasonable.

She replied: "Sorry if this may come off as rude but I don’t do ice cream dates. I’m a 26-year-old woman and a date like that seems like the absolute bare minimum for me. Meeting up would be a waste of both of our times since we probably don’t have the same vibe. Best wishes."

I guess she really doesn't like ice cream.

People were quick to offer their thoughts, as one sweetly replied: "I would get ice cream w you (I am a dude tho but we can talk about dude stuff)."

A second added: "WOW. I’d be so happy with a date idea that wasn’t the same old thing. She’s missing out. You’ll find someone to appreciate your ice cream date."

Credit: Reddit Credit: Reddit

However, one person started a new subreddit to call out the man and support the woman.

They wrote: "The woman here was polite, communicated clearly, and in my opinion did nothing wrong or worthy of being mocked by hundreds of strangers. She is allowed to think an ice cream date isn’t fun or interesting or worth her time."

Perhaps this was a simple case of two people wanting different things.

Hopefully, the woman finds a man who meets her needs because Vance is not short of invitations to go and get ice cream.

Featured image credit: Artur Debat/Getty

Dating is by no means easy. Even if you manage to land a hot date, you still have some way to go to turn it into a relationship. If you both come in with good intentions and try to make it work, it doesn't always end with success either. The nicest date in the world can end with one person just not feeling that spark, and deciding to move on.

That's when you get into the tricky business of how to let someone down easy - and let's face it, most of us are terrible at this part. Some are blunt, but others try to avoid being hurtful by not saying anything at all, and end up ghosting someone, making the situation far more confusing than it has to be.

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This was the situation on woman found herself in recently after her date just wasn't quite doing it for her. The woman, from Norwich, Norfolk, went on a date with a man earlier this week. She bought a gin & tonic during the date, which he offered to pay for, then they left the date on good terms. However, after thinking on it, she realised she didn't feel a spark between them, so did the good thing and was up front about how she feels.

Angela messaged him to thank him for the evening and wish him the best of luck, but let him down easy. However, she was a little surprised when his response was a little less positive than she'd hope. Not only did he ask her to repay him for the drink he'd bought her, but he added his bank details to the message so she could transfer over the money.

"I wish you lots of luck in finding your special person," she wrote in her text. "Take care and it was nice meeting you."

But then he responded, asking for her to compensate him for his 'wasted' time. "Oh dear . It's expensive being a man being rejected all the time. Please be kind enough to put 4.95 in my account to pay for you drink," he said, before listing his bank details.

Angela's daughter, Sophie, later shared a screenshot of his message onto Twitter, where it has now received 4,000 retweets and over 40,000 likes.

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"She swerved one there I think!" one wrote, while another brought up their own story about something similar that had happened to her, this time with her ex-boyfriend's mother:

"When I split from my boyfriend at 17, his mum rang my mum and asked for £365 to cover the meals I'd had at their house over the last year! Needless to say, my mum had a few choice words to say and her cheque book stayed shut."

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Others had plenty to say about it, with some, strangely enough, siding with the man in the situation.

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If there's one way to respond to a rejection, this ain't it. Buying someone a drink is meant to be a nice offer, not a transaction...

As we pass the halfway point of February and the excitement of Valentine's Day dies down, let's take a moment to remember the many people who didn't have a date for Valentine's. If you're anything like me, your timeline last Wednesday was probably filled with a ton of semi-ironic memes, using humor to mask the pain of loneliness. That's cool, though. It's definitely not easy to get into a loving, fulfilling and meaningful relationship, and even those who are actively trying for that get hurt in a number of different ways. There's different weird and dangerous practices in dating like "love bombing", "kittenfishing" or "breadcrumbing" that I probably couldn't tell you about off the top of my head, but many people have told me are ruining dating as we know it. Again. But in any romantic relationship, the issue of consent is a major talking point, and for good reason. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BfV8B8CnnHr/?tagged=couplegoals]] Of course, over the past six months or so the issue of sexual assault has come to light in many a Hollywood circle, while the short story Cat Person went viral when posted on the New Yorker, with many men and women clashing over the literary depiction of a disappointing sexual encounter. But one woman asked the internet a question relating to a man she potentially had a romantic future with, the internet had a pretty clear idea of what went wrong. On the website Quora, an anonymous female user had a dilemma: she'd been asked on a date by a man, but things didn't quite go to plan. “A guy asked me out today and I told him 'no', but I wanted him to try harder. Why didn’t he try again?” she asked, and although the answer might seem obvious to you or I, she was given the perfect response. One Quora user by the name Ron Rule set the record straight, and when he puts it in those words, you can see exactly where he's coming from. Although it's natural to want somebody else to like you enough to want to fight for your affection, there's a difference between playing hard-to-get and sending unnecessary mixed signals. Put in decidedly fewer words by Ron up there. The amusing nature of this Quora response quickly got tongues a-wagging online, and before long, other people were posting their own amusing variants of this rather interesting online query, sharing experiences of their own of similar incidents. It all goes to show: while we're a lot better than we have been in the past at understanding consent and expressing ourselves in the right way, there's still a ways to go, especially when it's not always easy to be genuine about how we feel. Instead of putting the ones we adore though trials and tribulations, we should all try to be a little bit more to be completely honest about our romantic intentions.

We are all on the lookout for "the one", but the search for true love can be exhausting. First dates can be awkward encounters that remind you just how hard it is to find someone you click with.

The secret to most successful romances seems to be a solid friendship and some shared interests and hobbies. That’s the approach taken by dates-n-mates, a National Lottery-funded dating and friendship agency run by and for adults with learning disabilities.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Dates-n-mates]]

The agency, which was launched 11 years ago, operations in four locations in Scotland: Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Aberdeen and Falkirk. As well as providing opportunities for its members to meet new people and try new things, it helps them develop their social skills and boost their confidence and independence.

Each brand of dates-n-mates hosts up to six social events each month for its members. They range from creative workshops and club nights, to meals out, karaoke, bowling, cinema trips, quizzes, speed dating and LGBTQ events.

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Craig met Kirsty at a dates-n-mates event. "I used to be a bit shy and I don’t speak to people when I’m shy, I just sit by myself," says the 35-year-old. "I was upset and my family set me up with dates-n-mates"

Kirsty says dates-n-mates provided her with a safe place to socialise with like-minded individuals. "Before I met Craig it was boring," she explained. "I watched TV on my own. I had nothing to do."

The couple met at a ‘Blind Date’ event and recently attended the dates-n-mates Masquerade Ball together.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Dates-n-mates]]

Dates-n-mates Project and Volunteer Development Coordinator, Lesley says demand for the schemes services is increasing as “attitudes to people with learning disabilities change and as there is increasing awareness of the physical health implications for people suffering from feelings of isolation and loneliness."

Now, thanks to The National Lottery support, dates-n-mates boasts a membership of more than 350 across Scotland, with around 380 non-members participating in open events including Club LATE, as well as Valentines and Christmas parties. Additionally, 100 per cent of families and carers of dates-n-mates members reported that they had seen an increase in their loved ones'
confidence.

The heart of the initiative, however, lies with those it has brought together, and the unequivocal impact its made on their lives. As Kirsty reflects: "I wanted number one and he was number one. I couldn’t believe I picked him."

This is a sponsored article in association with The National Lottery.