How AI is changing dating smacked me in the face last Thursday night, no cap. I’m sitting on my couch in this stupidly overpriced one-bedroom in Austin, Whataburger bag still sweating on the coffee table, doom-scrolling Hinge for the 47th time that week, and I realize every single prompt answer I’m reading sounds… perfect. Too perfect. Like someone ran their entire personality through ChatGPT and hit “make me sound witty but chill.” And I’m over here typing “I’m 6’1” if you consider Whataburger spicy ketchup a personality trait” feeling like a caveman.
The First Time How AI Is Changing Dating Actually Broke Me
Real story: March 2025. Matched with this girl, Sarah-with-the-good-playlist, photos looked normal—slightly grainy iPhone shots, not that scary FaceApp smoothness. We’re texting, banter is elite, she’s dropping the exact obscure indie bands I pretend to know. I’m thinking “holy shit, finally.” Then she casually mentions she used Grok to “help write some of her prompts.” Cool, whatever. Three days later she admits her entire texting style? AI-assisted. Like she’d paste my messages into some LLM and have it suggest replies that “sounded more like her but better.” Bro. I unmatched so fast I almost dropped my phone in the toilet.
The Filters Are Literally How AI Is Changing Dating Attraction Itself
Y’all see those new filters? The ones that don’t just smooth your skin but straight-up reshape your jawline in real time on video calls? I was on FaceTime with this chick last month and mid-conversation her face just… shifted. Cheekbones got higher, eyes got bigger, it was like watching a Snapchat filter evolve into the Terminator. And the wild part? I felt my brain go “oh damn she’s hotter now” even though I KNEW it was fake. That’s when I realized how AI is changing attraction on some primal monkey level. We’re training ourselves to want avatars.
Random side effects I’ve noticed in the wild:
- Everyone’s “voice” in text is suspiciously good now
- The bar for opening lines has gone from “hey” to full poetic essays
- I caught myself asking Claude for “something flirty but not try-hard” last week—shoot me
- Half the women I match with have “prompt engineer” in their bio unironically
My Most Embarrassing Moment With How AI Is Changing Dating
Okay, fine. Two weeks ago I was drunk at 1 AM and paid $20 for one of those “roast my dating profile” AI things. It told me my photos made me look “approachable but terminally mid” and that my prompt about loving dive bars “screamed alcoholic who tips poorly.” Brutal. Accurate. I deleted Bumble for three days and just ate Torchy’s tacos in shame.
The Scariest Part of How AI Is Changing Dating (That Nobody Talks About)
We’re all becoming NPCs to each other. I caught myself doing the same shit—using AI to “optimize” my messages, picking photos that test best with some Reddit algorithm, writing prompts that focus-group perfectly. We’re turning dating into content creation. And the matches feel… hollow? Like we’re both performing optimized versions of ourselves instead of just being weird humans who sometimes send voice notes while crying in Target parking lots.
Look, I’m not some Luddite yelling about “back in my day we slid into MySpace Top 8.” AI is genuinely helpful sometimes. It helped me rewrite my bio from “I like dogs and tacos” to something that doesn’t make women immediately swipe left. But man… I miss when attraction was just “she laughed at my dumb joke in person” instead of “her AI-approved avatar responded positively to my AI-generated opener.”
So Where Do We Go Now That How AI Is Changing Dating Is Basically Inevitable?
My completely unqualified advice from someone who’s very much failing at this:
- Put one genuinely terrible photo in your profile (mine is me mid-sneeze at ACL 2023)
- Write at least one prompt without AI help—like freewrite that shit at 3 AM
- When you match with someone, ask them to send a voice note doing their worst impression of anything
- Remember that the goal is to meet the messy human, not the avatar
Anyway, I gotta go. Just got a Hinge notification that says “Jacob wrote you a message with help from his AI companion” and honestly? Mood.
If you’re also out here navigating how AI is changing dating and feeling like a glitchy Sims character, drop your worst AI dating horror story in the comments. I need to know I’m not alone eating cold quesadillas and questioning my entire existence.
Outbound Link:
- That moment Sarah admitted she was using AI to text me better → anchor: “she’d paste my messages into some LLM” link: https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24222197/ai-dating-coach-texting-assistant-relationship-advice
- The filters that literally reshape your face on video calls → anchor: “those new filters” link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/technology/ai-beauty-filters-dating-apps.html
- The AI that roasted my dating profile into oblivion → anchor: “one of those ‘roast my dating profile’ AI things” link: https://roast.dating (yes that’s a real site in 2025 and it’s brutal)
