\n<\/p>\n
S<\/span>tanding outside the pub, 36-year-old business owner Rachel took a final tug on her vape and steeled herself to meet the man she\u2019d spent the last three weeks opening up to. They\u2019d matched on the dating app Hinge and built a rapport that quickly became something deeper. \u201cFrom the beginning he was asking very open-ended questions, and that felt refreshing,\u201d says Rachel. One early message from her match read: \u201cI\u2019ve been reading a bit about attachment styles lately, it\u2019s helped me to understand myself better \u2013 and the type of partner I should be looking for. Have you ever looked at yours? Do you know your attachment style?\u201d \u201cIt was like he was genuinely trying to get to know me on a deeper level. The questions felt a lot more thoughtful than the usual, \u2018How\u2019s your day going?\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Soon, Rachel and her match were speaking daily, their conversations running the gamut from the ridiculous (favourite memes, ketchup v mayonnaise) to the sublime (expectations in love, childhood traumas). Often they\u2019d have late-night exchanges that left her staring at her phone long after she should have been asleep. \u201cThey were like things that you read in self-help books \u2013 really personal conversations about who we are and what we want for our lives,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Which is why the man who greeted her inside the pub \u2013 polite, pleasant but oddly flat \u2013 felt like a stranger. Gone was the quickfire wit and playful rhythm she\u2019d come to expect from their exchanges. Over pints he stumbled through small talk, checked his phone a little too often, and seemed to wilt under the pressure of her questions. \u201cI felt like I was sitting opposite someone I\u2019d never even spoken to,\u201d she says. \u201cI tried to have the same sort of conversation as we\u2019d been having online, but it was like, \u2018Knock, knock, is anyone home?\u2019 \u2013 like he knew basically nothing about me. That\u2019s when I\u00a0suspected he\u2019d been using AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel gave her date the benefit of the doubt. \u201cI\u00a0thought maybe he was nervous,\u201d she says. But she\u2019d been \u201cChatfished\u201d before, so when the gap between his real and digital selves failed to close on their second date, she called it off. \u201cI\u2019d already been ChatGPT-ed into bed at least once. I didn\u2019t want it to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n W<\/span>here once daters were duped by soft-focus photos and borrowed chat-up lines, now they\u2019re seduced by ChatGPT-polished banter and AI-generated charm. Dating app fatigue is nothing new; for all its promise of convenience and unlimited choices, the gamified nature of finding love in the app age has, over the years, left many users feeling disposable. And, as AI becomes an ever more present feature of modern life \u2013 embedded into everything from healthcare systems to online grocery shopping \u2013 it\u2019s adding yet another layer of digital artifice to the search for love.<\/p>\n In a landscape where text-based communication plays an outsized role in the search for love, it\u2019s perhaps understandable that some of us reach for AI\u2019s helping hand \u2013 not everyone gives good text. Some Chatfishers, though, go to greater extremes, outsourcing entire conversations to ChatGPT, leaving their match in a dystopian hall of mirrors: believing they\u2019re building a genuine connection with another human being when in reality they\u2019re opening up to an algorithm trained to reflect their desires back to them.<\/p>\n The majority of Chatfishers say they would never dream of letting AI do all of their talking. Most are like 38-year-old Londoner Nick, who sees it as a tool to help foster stronger connections with app matches. He works in tech and lives with his girlfriend; they\u2019re in an open relationship and both date other people casually. He sometimes uses ChatGPT in his conversations on the dating apps Feeld and Bumble. \u201cIf I\u2019m using a dating app,\u201d he says, \u201cI want to start a conversation that feels meaningful from the beginning so I can hook the other person in \u2013 but also I don\u2019t want to spend too much time on it. Equally, while I want it to be \u2018meaningful\u2019, I don\u2019t necessarily want to get super heavy and emotional straight away \u2013 it feels like quite a balancing act.\u201d ChatGPT, he says, helps him tread that fine line: offering enough charm to spark a connection, without the investment of time or emotional labour that might otherwise feel wasted if the match fizzles out after a handful of messages.<\/p>\n I\u2019m mostly me on the dating app \u2013 just maybe asking better questions<\/p>\n For Nick, ChatGPT isn\u2019t helpful \u201cif I have a good connection with someone and the conversation is flowing \u2013 because what\u2019s the point in using it then?\u201d If, on the other hand, he\u2019s matched with a person \u201cand things are stalling, maybe the conversation has gotten a bit boring but the person is really hot or intriguing, then I might say, \u2018Please find a good, engaging, funny answer to this to keep the conversation going.\u2019\u201d He never copies entire answers \u2013 \u201cChatGPT formulates things in a very obvious way,\u201d he says \u2013 but he takes inspiration, or uses certain lines and phrases that sound most like him. Still, he admits there\u2019s a subtle slippage when you start filtering yourself through a bot. \u201cIt might have generated some things I wouldn\u2019t say or aren\u2019t 100% me, but I went with them anyway. So, in that respect it probably has influenced what someone thinks about me,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it\u2019s dishonest. I\u2019m mostly me on the dating app \u2013 just maybe asking better questions.\u201d<\/p>\n For the past three months, 28-year-old social worker Holly from Kent has been navigating a \u201csituationship\u201d with a co-worker. Though they knew each other from the office, they initially started speaking via LinkedIn. Now, they see each other sporadically \u2013 \u201cI wouldn\u2019t call them dates,\u201d Holly deadpans \u2013 but speak often via WhatsApp. \u201cI mainly use AI because I tend to write really long messages,\u201d she says, \u201cso I\u2019ll put them into ChatGPT and say, \u2018Please make this softer and more clear\u2019, or, \u2018I need to sound harsher here so he understands I\u2019m upset.\u2019\u201d She doesn\u2019t feel that it\u2019s misleading \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m not trying to manipulate anyone,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Her story perhaps speaks to the fact that relationship dynamics have shifted in recent years. According to a 2024 YouGov poll, for instance, around half of Americans aged 18-34 reported having been, like Holly, in a situationship (a term it defines as \u201ca romantic connection that exists in a gray area, neither strictly platonic nor officially a committed relationship\u201d). At the same time, few of us have developed the communication skills to navigate the emotional grey areas thrown up by less stable relationship boundaries. For Holly, having her messages reshaped by AI means she can strike the right balance between honesty and tact: \u201cSometimes it helps me sound kinder when I\u2019m angry.\u201d Still, she says she would never tell her situationship that she uses AI to help her message him \u2013 \u201cand I guess maybe he sees me as less reactive and more understanding because of how my messages are.\u201d<\/p>\n As 32-year-old Rich points out, though, \u201cit\u2019s not like using ChatGPT guarantees success\u201d. When he met someone in a bar one Friday night and swapped social media handles, he asked AI what his next move should be. ChatGPT discerned that sending an initial message on Monday midmorning would set the right pace. \u201cThen it gave me some options for what the message could be,\u201d says Rich. \u201cKeep it light, warm, and low-stakes so it reads as genuine interest without urgency,\u201d the bot advised. \u201cSomething like: Hey Sarah, still laughing about [tiny shared moment\/reference if you\u2019ve got one] \u2013 good to meet you!\u201d Rich went back and forth with ChatGPT until he felt they\u2019d hit upon exactly the right message (\u201cHey Sarah, it was lovely to meet you\u201d) but sadly she never replied, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s been two weeks now.\u201d<\/p>\n When it\u2019s obvious, the polish of ChatGPT can have the opposite effect to the intended. \u201cI lose interest quickly,\u201d says 35-year-old Nina, who works as an editor for a Serbian language website in Manchester. She was recently on the receiving end of an AI-generated opening line: \u201cYour smile is effortlessly captivating\u201d. \u201cNo one talks like that,\u201d she says. She didn\u2019t bother replying. She\u2019s been single for three years and uses Hinge and Bumble. She has turned to AI herself to help improve her profiles: \u201cIt basically told me to sound more confident and positive,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve also asked it for help with opening lines, especially when I didn\u2019t know what to say. Once or twice I thought my matches were using it on me, too \u2013 their replies felt too polished, like they weren\u2019t really listening. It\u2019s helpful in some ways but it does make me wonder what\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u00a0thought she was fit so I wanted to keep the momentum going<\/p>\n Jamil, 25, from Leicester, admits he\u2019s a prolific Chatfisher but argues that AI is simply a workaround for what he sees as the coded jargon of modern dating. \u201cLike, what do you mean \u2018What\u2019s my attachment style?\u2019\u201d he balks. \u201cEvery girl on the apps has this thing about \u2018love languages\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s just gibberish, but if you don\u2019t talk about it, people are like, \u2018Oh you\u2019re a red flag.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At first, he turned to ChatGPT in desperation. \u201cIt was just a quick thing,\u201d he says. He works on an IT help desk and found himself trying to continue a conversation with a girl he wanted to impress while also swamped with work. \u201cI asked ChatGPT what \u2018avoidant style attachment\u2019 meant because a girl was saying she\u2019d been told this was her, and it explained, then added this prompt at the end like, \u2018Do you want me to craft a reply?\u2019 So I said yeah. I felt out of my depth and was also just really busy that day. I\u00a0thought she was fit so I wanted to keep the momentum going.\u201d The reply \u2013 \u201cI think mine is \u2018clingy but with snacks\u2019, so maybe we\u2019ll balance each other out\u201d \u2013 proved effective. \u201cShe sent a few skull emojis, meaning she was dying laughing. I said I\u2019d have to message her later because of work, and she replied asking if I wanted to meet \u2013 so yeah, it was, like, \u2018Wow, this works.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Francesca, 33, owns a digital marketing agency in Cardiff. Like Jamil, she explains that ChatGPT grants her access to a world of inferences and subtext that she\u2019d otherwise find impossible to navigate. \u201cAs an autistic woman in an era where the only way to meet anyone is through dating apps, I have struggled immensely. I found understanding tone and \u2018the rules\u2019 impossible and so ChatGPT has been really useful,\u201d she says. When she started using it in a dating context it was more as a digital sounding board \u2013 an impartial presence that could give her feedback on her profile and offer a debrief after a date.<\/p>\n \u201cI pasted all the Hinge prompts [the questions users fill in on their profile] into ChatGPT and said, \u2018Knowing what you know of me, choose the best prompts and write a good answer,\u2019\u201d she says. The bot replied: \u201cBased on everything I know about you \u2013 creative, self-aware, emotionally intelligent \u2026 I\u2019d recommend choosing one of the following Hinge prompts \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t copy them exactly, Francesca says, but it gave her a lot of inspiration. Regardless, it still felt like her because the bot was taking what it knew about her from their daily exchanges \u2013 \u201cAI is integrated into many parts of my business,\u201d she says \u2013 and compressing it into the concise, playful language appropriate for a dating app. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t writing me a new personality.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh ChatGPT was right, he did want to see me again<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until she\u2019d matched with a man whom she found difficult to read that she began to deploy ChatGPT for messaging. \u201cOur messages before we met had been really good [without any help from AI] but in person, he wasn\u2019t very flirty or forward and didn\u2019t try to kiss me at the end of our first date. I thought either he didn\u2019t really fancy me or he was just trying to be respectful,\u201d she says. She took screenshots of their last few exchanges, fed the messages and a short account of the date \u2013 a blustery walk around a lake \u2013 into ChatGPT, and asked it to read the room for her. The reply, helpfully clinical, suggested he was probably being respectful rather than uninterested, and recommended a light, open-ended follow-up. She sent a version of the suggested message, he replied enthusiastically, and they arranged a second date. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh ChatGPT was right, he did want to see me again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n After that she found herself checking with the bot between every message, and requesting five variations before choosing the one that sounded most like her. \u201cOver the course of a week, I realised I was relying on it quite a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I was like, you know what, that\u2019s fine \u2013 why not outsource my love life to ChatGPT?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018I didn\u2019t know how to talk to this person as myself any more.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Getty Images\/ iStockphoto<\/p>\n By the time they\u2019d been on their third date, though, \u201cI was using ChatGPT for our entire communication,\u201d says Francesca. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even replying any more \u2013 he was basically just dating ChatGPT.\u201d In person, their dates still lacked spark. \u201cI was very aware that I\u2019d taken it too far but I felt like I was in too deep by that point. I\u00a0didn\u2019t know how to get out of it, I didn\u2019t know how to talk to this person as myself any more.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/span><\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Jamil had a similar moment of dissonance sitting opposite a woman he\u2019d Chatfished into a date. \u201cProbably within a week of that first message I was using ChatGPT for every dating app exchange,\u201d he says. On Discord, a chat platform popular with gamers and tech communities, he came across channels dedicated to AI where other single men were exchanging tips about how to prompt ChatGPT to generate effective dating messages. \u201cSo, for instance, someone said that if you start a chat with a girl by asking her a list of questions \u2013 favourite film, dream holiday, that kind of thing \u2013 then paste her answers into ChatGPT, it would craft replies that would make you sound like her perfect match.\u201d It\u00a0proved effective. \u201cIt got me a lot more dates than I was getting before.\u201d<\/p>\n I felt bad \u2013 I think that was the only time I thought it was kind of dishonest<\/p>\n Chat GPT is a large language model (LMM), and the way LLMs work is by spotting patterns in language \u2013 the bot was picking up on keywords and themes in his match\u2019s answers and weaving them into jokes, compliments or echoes of shared interests. Where Jamil might have left an awkward \u201cnice\u201d or \u201ccool\u201d, the bot would spin his match\u2019s love of Bali into a playful, if somewhat unimaginative, line about coconut cocktails. It made him seem, at the very least, attentive. Jamil says he doesn\u2019t feel he tricked anyone, he sees it more as hacking the apps themselves. \u201cDating apps put everyone at a disadvantage \u2013 you\u2019re competing with hundreds of other people for attention, and half the time the chats die after two or three messages. If\u00a0ChatGPT helps me stand out, why wouldn\u2019t I use it?\u201d<\/p>\n Still, there was one date that pricked his conscience. He was doing the usual copy-and-paste, letting ChatGPT do the heavy lifting, \u201cwhen a girl started talking about how she\u2019d had a bereavement in her family\u201d. ChatGPT navigated her grief with composure, synthesising the kind of sympathy that made Jamil seem like a model of emotional literacy. \u201cIt said something like, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry you\u2019re going through this, it must be really difficult \u2013 thank you for trusting me with it,\u2019\u201d Jamil recalls. When he met the girl in real life, she noted how supportive he\u2019d been in his messages. \u201cI felt bad \u2013 I think that was the only time I thought it was kind of dishonest. I didn\u2019t tell her I\u2019d used ChatGPT but I really tried to message her myself after that.\u201d<\/p>\n Recently he says he\u2019s been caught out more often. \u201cI\u2019ll get people saying point blank, \u2018This sounds bait\u2019, even if I\u2019m not just copy-and-pasting. More people are using AI now so they can spot it. I think the golden age of just letting it do all your messaging has passed.\u201d<\/p>\n Francesca had a wake-up call when a simple mistake nearly gave the game away. She pasted a wry message scripted by ChatGPT into her WhatsApp chat with a date, only to realise it ended with the telltale bot prompt: \u201cDo you want me to make this punchier?\u201d It wasn\u2019t until his baffled reply \u2013 \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d \u2013 that she realised her mistake. \u201cI just thought, Oh God, I\u2019ve been caught,\u201d she says. She left his question unanswered for a few hours, until deciding the only option was to style it out by pretending that part was meant for a co-worker.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went on one more date afterwards but I wasn\u2019t sure if he was interested in me or not, so I just let it go. I thought, \u2018I\u2019m not up for having to analyse every interaction to see if he\u2019s into me.\u2019 And anyway, by that point, 90% of the messages he\u2019d had off me had been by ChatGPT so it wasn\u2019t like we\u2019d properly gotten to know each other \u2013 he was basically dating the AI.\u201d<\/p>\n For Paul C Brunson, dating guru and one of the experts currently guiding contestants on Married at First Sight UK, there\u2019s a clear line between using AI as a tool and actively lying. \u201cAI is amazing and it has the potential to help a lot of people \u2013 of course it depends on the degree to which someone is relying on it and the purpose behind why they\u2019re using it. For many, it\u2019s simply an enhancement that will allow them to connect with others more easily.\u201d For him, the ultimate dating advice will always be to meet your matches as soon as possible. \u201cIt\u2019s the best way to determine if you\u2019re a viable match \u2013 you get to observe their behaviour and see if they seem trustworthy. You know, were they consistent in their word? Did they show up when they said they would? Did you feel like you were physically attracted to them? How was the communication when you were sitting opposite them? AI doesn\u2019t impact any of that \u2013 AI is the tool to help facilitate the meetup.\u201d Equally, though, he says that most of us know that \u201cfully misrepresenting who you are \u2013 lying, basically,\u201d has no place in modern dating. \u201cAnd I think the vast majority of people would know when they\u2019ve crossed that line.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem, as Rachel sees it, is that some people will cross that line deliberately. \u201cBefore the advent of AI, it was like, OK, maybe you don\u2019t look like your pictures,\u201d she says, \u201cand that\u2019s annoying but you\u2019d quickly be caught out. Now though, people are putting forward entirely new personas.\u201d She describes being on the receiving end of the kinds of techniques that Jamil uses \u2013 being drilled with questions, \u201clike you\u2019re answering an HR questionnaire\u201d, then off the back of those answers \u201chaving conversations where it feels as if the other person has a tap on my phone because everything they say is so perfectly suited to me\u201d.<\/p>\n The worst, she says, was the time she matched with a handsome man. \u201cIt\u2019s an awful generalisation \u2013 but I thought he would be all looks and no substance,\u201d she admits. It was a pleasant surprise, then, when their digital <\/strong>conversation flowed easily and she realised they had a lot in common. \u201cI thought I\u2019d found the perfect man. At one point, I talked about how much I loved going on walks and he was like, \u2018I know this place with amazing lavender fields, I\u2019m going to take you there.\u2019 I mean, I\u00a0was used to dating people who didn\u2019t even get me a card on my birthday \u2013 and this man was offering to take me to lavender fields? I felt he was really listening to me.\u201d<\/p>\n When you\u2019re looking for love and someone says the right things, you aren\u2019t thinking, \u2018He must be a bot\u2019<\/p>\n Their date went well, carried on a tide of high spirits from days of intense messaging. \u201cWe got pretty intoxicated and did sleep together \u2013 I was just swept away by it all,\u201d she says. After that date, though, the messages changed \u2013 the flowing sentences filled with questions and quips, the bullet-point lists of books she might like and places they should visit, were replaced by terse one-word replies, sent after long delays. She showed the conversation to a friend, who was the first person to point out that many of his messages bore the hallmarks of having been generated by ChatGPT. She\u2019d never used AI and so wasn\u2019t on the lookout for the distinctive cadences and long dashes. \u201cMaybe I was naive, but when you\u2019re looking for love and someone comes along who says the right things, seems to be on the same page as you, you aren\u2019t thinking, \u2018He must be a bot\u2019, you\u2019re thinking you\u2019ve just stumbled across Prince Charming.\u201d<\/p>\n I<\/span>f ghosting was the defining hazard of early app dating, Chatfishing may be its AI-age successor. The rise of ChatGPT in our romantic lives might simply be a symptom of burnout: after years of swiping and stilted exchanges, who wouldn\u2019t be tempted by a digital dating coach, promising wit on tap? Dating apps encourage us to treat romance like a market, full of infinite choice, where we are products to be optimised. AI simply extends that logic \u2013 and if the right line, the right cadence, can buy us a little more attention, why wouldn\u2019t we use it?<\/p>\n But the secrecy around it is revealing. That so many daters are hiding their reliance on AI suggests that deep down we all know that true intimacy demands vulnerability. Having a chatbot mediate our flirtations \u2013 even just in the early stages \u2013 risks dimming that intangible spark that only arises in unscripted moments. Worse still, as Rachel\u2019s lavender-field disappointment shows, the drive for more matches, quicker, can leave others feeling used, misled, even doubting what\u2019s real. And dating is perhaps just a test case; as AI seeps further into every corner of our lives, the temptation to neaten the messiness, to smooth the hesitations and flaws that make us human, will surely grow. What happens when no exchange is person-to-person any more? When we\u2019re all talking into echo chambers, hearing our own words reflected back at us?<\/p>\n Ultimately, there is no shortcut to connection. \u201cDating apps are kind of mislabelled,\u201d says Brunson. \u201cThey should more appropriately be called \u2018introduction apps\u2019, because they\u2019re really only designed to introduce you to potential matches. The rest needs to be done in person \u2013 that\u2019s where you find if you have chemistry. And no algorithm can do that part for us.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/em>Some names have been changed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Standing outside the pub, 36-year-old business owner Rachel took a final tug on her vape and steeled herself to meet the man she\u2019d spent the last three weeks opening up to. They\u2019d matched on the dating app Hinge and built a rapport that quickly became something deeper. \u201cFrom the beginning he was asking very open-ended<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5930,16491,16492,16490,2156,5679,1253,4243,2177],"class_list":{"0":"post-27699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-apps","9":"tag-bed","10":"tag-chatfishing","11":"tag-chatgpted","12":"tag-dating","13":"tag-finding","14":"tag-love","15":"tag-realised","16":"tag-weirder"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}