Peoples first time reactions to VR porn.

Really? It's easier to change your personality, your beliefs, the way you act and think, the very things that intrinsically define you, than it is to get a job or to go to community college or something?

It's somewhat of an apples/oranges comparison, but yes, I do think it's easier. If someone grows up in the ghetto, surrounded by hopeless people who constantly tell them that it's impossible to succeed, and in fact even become educated is frowned on as "playing their game" or "trying to be white" or whatever, that's damn difficult to overcome.

Compare that to being social and attractive, which is actively encouraged by everyone around you, and is positively reinforced by successful social interactions leading to better feelings about oneself, as well as expanding one's circle of friends.

Then look at the process. To improve one's income requires some amount of intelligence, which I also think can be improved, but only so much. Success also requires financial resources, cooperation with other people, such professors, other students, etc, and a lot of work. Life often gets in the way if they have transportation problems, time issues if they work in a job, on and on.

The process of learning to become social is completely within yourself. There is a world of opportunities to learn around you. An effectively infinite number of books (How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic), not to mention numerous resources on the Internet. And the most crucial aspect is literally all around -- the opportunity to practice. Everything improves with practice, and social skills are definitely not an exception. The key is a willingness to want to crack the code and improve oneself through deliberate practice.

but a guy with an ugly face and a banging body would have much less luck.

Michael Phelps. It's not just the olympic medals, even before that, the guy was known as a total womanizer. A great body goes a long way.

Which brings me back to my ORIGINAL point - that for some people, who want what pretty much EVERYONE wants, (an attractive partner) VR / AR is the only way to get it, and people who look down on that as creepy or pathetic lack empathy.

I actually have no problem with this point; too many people DON'T understand what it's like to be in that situation and feel pretty hopeless. My issue was really with the idea that it's society's fault that some people are alone. It's possible for both to be true that a) Some people might need (perhaps temporarily) some artificial relationship aid, and 2) It IS possible to change themselves and improve their lives.

And by the way, I'm probably coming off too strong in this thread, and I don't mean this to sound so harsh. You CAN fix this. I wish I had figured it out faster than I did, honestly. Seriously, good luck. I hope you find the courage to move forward. One last thing I'll tell you that was crucial to me figuring it out: Patterning. I literally mimicked a friend I had who was very socially successful. His mannerisms, speech patterns, way of holding himself, etc, sort of in a "fake it 'til you make it" way. If you don't have a friend like that, find other sources. Eventually, some of those patterns felt natural to me and I just started doing them more, while others didn't feel natural and I dropped them. But it was a way to learn.

/r/oculus Thread Link - youtube.com