Should I Play Pokémon Go or have sex?

Paige Nick on the perils of dating and other games

Suddenly Pokémon Go is better than sex. I personally do it as often as I can. Not Pokémon Go, I've never done that, I mean sex.

Bizarrely, three weeks ago, none of us had even heard of it, and now it's the biggest wank on the net. In Japan, one of the Pokémon characters, Pikachu, is as popular as Mickey Mouse.

The web used to be controlled by cats, pornography and the Kardashians (not necessarily in that order), but the power is shifting. Pokémon is the internet's new huge throbbing penis.

In terms of Google Trends, every term you type into the computer is scored for its popularity in comparison with all the other terms people type in. With 100 being the highest any term can go.

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So, let's call 100 the money shot. On July 11 Pokémon hit the money shot, just six days after its release.

Ever since around 2010, porn has been cited as one of the most typed-in search terms on Google, hitting around 91 on the trending popularity scale, and it's managed to hold that spot, till now.

Pokémon Go was downloaded more times in one week than Tinder, the world's biggest dating app.

Which is interesting when you consider all the similarities between dating and playing Pokémon Go. I once dated a guy with a tiny Pikachu, but he had a giant pair of Jigglypuffs.

In both dating and Poking, you run around various locations trying to find the best match, collecting a bunch of them in the process.

There are short ones, tall ones, pink, yellow and brown ones, cute and ugly ones. You can find these matches just about anywhere; at the park, gym, laundromat or library.

But you have to be careful, there's a dangerous side too. There's no shortage of creeps out there and you might bump into someone else chasing the same match as you and then you'll have to fight them off.

Sound familiar, all the single ladies?

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And also, no matter how many great ones you find, you're always wondering if there isn't a better catch waiting just around the corner?

With all these similarities, there's no surprise that now there's Poke Dates, a Pokémon dating website that uses your personal details, and of course your Pokémon preferences, to find a match in your area and then sends you both to a PokeStop to meet up (for 20 bucks a pop).

The only problem I perceive is that to look into each other's eyes and fall in love, "players" will actually have to look up from their phones at some point, and we all know that's unlikely to happen.

What this massive shift in Google Trends means is that the world would suddenly rather chase around hunting imaginary cartoons than download (another) video of Kanye and Kim doing it. I can't tell if that means we're maturing or regressing.

E-mail the author of this article, Paige Nick, at amillionmilesfromnormal@gmail.com or find her on twitter @paigen

Paige Nick's novel, 'Dutch Courage' is published by Penguin Random House (R220)