Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Ben Williams
If dating apps weren’t confusing enough, now there’s a new problem to worry about, and it’s got less to do with ghosting and more to do with the ghosts in the machine.
When Rachel turned up at the pub to meet her Hinge match, she was expecting an instant spark. For weeks, they’d been talking: sharing stories about love, childhood, and even attachment styles. However, the man who greeted her seemed like a completely different person.
She told The Guardian: “I felt like I was sitting opposite someone I’d never even spoken to…I tried to have the same sort of conversation as we’d been having online, but it was like, ‘Knock, knock, is anyone home?’ – like he knew basically nothing about me.”
If you’ve been following the endless list of modern dating trends, you’ll know there’s always a new twist. We’ve already seen zip coding, relationship anarchy (ditching traditional labels), and floodlighting. This one feels different, though, and it’s creeping into people’s love lives faster than anyone expected.
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It’s called ‘chatfishing’: when people secretly use AI tools like ChatGPT to craft their dating messages; this can be for anything or everything from witty openers to deep, emotional replies. It’s catfishing for the chatbot era, and it’s quietly changing the way people flirt, date and fall in love.
According to a Sky News survey, 57 per cent of people think using AI on dating apps is dishonest. Still, plenty are doing it. Some claim it’s harmless help for awkward small talk, while others are outsourcing their entire dating strategy.
Meanwhile, some have been using AI as their own virtual wingman, with mixed results.
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Rich, 32, revealed how he asked ChatGPT when to message a woman he’d met at a bar, with the bot advising him to wait until Monday and to keep it ‘light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency’.
He finally messaged with: “Hey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you”, to which she never replied.
Futurism also observed this growing trend as something that could actually be keeping people single rather than helping them find love.
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While people are increasingly turning to AI for dating, sex, and relationship advice, the results are often painfully awkward, leaving conversations that feel robotic and detached.
As 35-year-old Nina put it after receiving the line, which said: “Your smile is effortlessly captivating”. Her response is what many would share: “No one talks like that.”
Dating experts also warn that while AI might make it easier to break the ice, it can’t fake chemistry.
Paul C Brunson, a relationship coach, told The Guardian: “AI is amazing and it has the potential to help a lot of people – of course it depends on the degree to which someone is relying on it and the purpose behind why they’re using it”.