TU is hard to categorize. The devs consider it a game about playing games. The term “Virtual World” doesn’t quite apply, yet it is really the closest category to which TU as a whole applies. In my opinion, I don’t think it fits the theme of TU to endorse more romantic gestures; we already had a debate about about marriage in TU, which was answered by a dev with this statement:
http://forums.pixeltailgames.com/t/marriage/2988/4
If lots of people do want these kinds of romantic gestures in then it wouldn’t be the end of the world to add them in. I just don’t think it fits TU, that’s all. If you want the kind of interactions Second Life has, then go play Second Life. TU has never aimed to be the same thing most Virtual World games aim to be, so it’s important to think about what fits TU as opposed to what fits the average Virtual World game.
As a note, I don’t think Caboose was a part of the dev team at the point of the topic, so his statement made earlier in that topic doesn’t apply as a dev statement.