Here’s one way of dealing with it…via SLOG…

Geekologie points out the RealTouch, which is a futuristic sex toy for men…

Apparently, the RealTouch is like a Fleshlight, kind of, only with moving parts. The orifice expands and contracts and the interior heats up to human body temperature. And it comes with a USB port that connects you to a computer where you can watch a POV porn film that is cued to the device, so the device simulates the intensity and frequency of the action committed by the porn star on the screen. Comes in straight and gay varieties.

Lovely…

Just…lovely…  Behold the total dehumanization of sex.   That…thing…on the right is the innards of the heterosexual version.  Please god let me be born a gay man in the next life. 

But there’s another way of dealing with this…

Germany: University offers IT students flirting course

A university in Germany is concerned that while some of its students are learning skills that will help them get ahead financially they might be lacking in the skills required to attract partners. Potsdam University, south of Berlin, has initiated a course in flirting and is offering the course to all Master Degree computer engineering students. So far 440 students have enrolled in the course.

Emphasis mine.  Gosh…you think there’s a need out there…?

The course will teach students how to write flirtatious email and text messages, methods for attracting partners at parties and functions, how to dress and what topics to discuss while on a date.  The course will also guide students in how to deal with rejection if the methods taught in the course fail to produce desired outcomes.

…The university believes that education for students should be about helping them succeed in their future private lives as well as their future careers. ‘Students that feel they are missing out on the fun that others are having are liable to suffer low self esteem and possibly depression: many IT and science students also tend to be socially shy so this is definitely a step in the right direction’ Marta, a student psychologist noted.

…Recent studies around the world have indeed shown that university students studying computer related subjects and science are most likely to be virgins and engage in the least sexual activity during their years on campus. Could Potsdam university break this cycle?

I don’t see why not.  This has been a hobby horse of mine ever since my mid-thirties when, still single and lonely, I became sickeningly apparent to me that I still had no clue what I was doing, or how to go about finding a lover.  School should teach this as a subject, right along with reading and math and everything else they’re supposed to be teaching kids to prepare them for life.  Yet we’re still, in this day and age, lucky to even get decent sex education.

Some people are naturals at this.  That’s fine but the thinking seems to be that the dating and mating game is something we are all innately naturals at and that just isn’t true or there wouldn’t be so much loneliness in the world.  And violence and hate and all sorts of other psychosis.  Think of how much more peaceful this poor angry world would be if everyone had an emotionally fulfilling love life.  Teaching people how to date, how to flirt, how to handle rejection, get back on their feet and go on, isn’t as silly as it sounds. 

We are not all naturals at this.  Most of us are just plain lousy at it.  Whatever evolutionary baggage we have for it probably doesn’t much apply in a modern industrial technological civilization.  The village were we all used to grow up in together and get to know one another is gone.  The dating environment our parents found each other in is gathering dust in the history books.  And they did it by trial and error too anyway.  We need to get past that, and start treating the human need for companionship seriously, like it’s just as much a matter of our long term survival as making babies.  Take a look at the news headlines on any day of the week and tell yourself that the problem with this world is there is too much love in it.

[Edited a tad...]