Technology can be used for so many good things. It has given us medical advances, it allows people to interact with people at the click of a button and it allows me to write this very column efficiently.

But with the good comes the bad, and this advance can’t get much worse. Set to hit the Asian and European markets by December, a Hong Kong-based artificial life company has created a virtual girlfriend for lonely men looking for romance.

Through the use of a 3G mobile phone, one can purchase a game that features a three-dimensional character that lives in a virtual world inside the phone.

The virtual girlfriend can be contacted at any time as she goes about her daily routines in her mobile world. She goes to the mall, the gym and even has a virtual job.

The man can stay in contact with his virtual girlfriend by sending it messages, and can track the girlfriend wherever it decides to go.

Like any relationship, one needs to make advances by showing commitment to the significant other. The virtual girlfriend stays happy by being taken out to restaurants and being showered with gifts – all of which costs “real” money.

But, sorry fellas, there is a catch. If you forget your virtual girlfriend’s birthday or an anniversary, you will have to work your way back up again.

All of this must be a good thing, right? This is a handy tool that can help teach inexperienced men how to treat a woman without actually having to deal with one.

Yes, a real great tool for learning.

It teaches men they can make a woman happy by using their wallets. Just buy the woman a necklace and take her out for dinner and the relationship will be fine for another month.

It teaches men that it is OK to follow a woman’s every move. If she wants to go out for a night with the girls, it is fine for the man to make sure that is what she is doing because the game taught him that. Hooray for stalkers.

The program also teaches men how to be antisocial. It says, ‘Hey, it’s perfectly normal to make friends with someone who isn’t real.’ A virtual relationship may harm one’s ability to communicate properly with a real person, creating a difficult social problem.

And for those men looking for a little more than someone to interact with, they won’t find it with the virtual girlfriend unless they enjoy making out with a cell phone.

The program seems so harmless when just looking at the cover; buy a program, have a little fun with it and learn a few things about relationships.

Taking a look at the core of it, this program is a joke and could cause some problems in some vulnerable men looking for love.

Relationships take practice and time. I have had good ones and bad ones, but I have learned something in each that I couldn’t have through a virtual world.

There is nothing better than the affection of another person, so creating a program where people rely on a virtual person as a companion should be looked at carefully.

But hey, maybe this could be a huge breakthrough, and in the future men and women only need each other for reproduction purposes.

Don’t worry ladies; the virtual boyfriend will hit the stores in February.