Outsourcing Love: an Evolutionary Approach to the Virtual Girlfriend Experience

This paper provides an overview of the “girlfriend experience” (GFE) from in-person to virtual. Drawing on OnlyFans and AI companion applications as case examples, we examine the rapid success of virtual GFE through the lens of evolutionary psychology. The traditional GFE, where men pay for simulated, one-sided, romantic relationships, has a long history. Disruptive technology, such as OnlyFans, have brought the GFE into the virtual world, creating the online GFE, where users pay content creators to act as online girlfriends via text, voice, and video-mediated interaction. Recently, AI girlfriend applications – chatbot companions that seek to simulate interactions characteristic of romantic relationships – have gained increased public attention and visibility. We formulate hypotheses about how these digital platforms might engage evolved motivational systems by partially satisfying needs for connection in evolutionarily novel contexts. We conclude this article by outlining research avenues to better understand the implications of outsourcing romantic interactions to digital platforms.