{‘It demonstrates such a lack of effort’: the reasons I decline to go out with someone who relies on ChatGPT|The AI Dating Dealbreaker: The Reasons I Refuse to Date a ChatGPT Enthusiast.

The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers film. We were in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that smelled of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is perfect,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He leaned in as if revealing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled tightly as this man explained using generative AI for the initial stages of planning the wedding. (They also employed a human wedding planner.) I replied courteously. Inside, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding ideas from ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Dating Dealbreakers: AI Usage.

Many individuals have standard relationship non-negotiables. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, desires kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced doomsday have dominated my social media and social conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I will not see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program truly, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my scorn.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. What if I use it for my job, but I dislike it otherwise? Imagine if I use it to help people? How about I only use it as a proofreading tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I respond: there are people out there for you. But I am not one of them.

How a Simple ‘Ick’ Turns Into a Ethical Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we occasionally call being repulsed. A key aspect of having an ick is not really understanding why you found someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a simple ick, a automatic feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in fall 2025, and using the program even for harmless tasks such as figuring out a fitness routine or choosing what to wear feels an more and more political choice. We are aware that the power-hungry tech drains our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is marketed as a substitute for human connection; isolated, detached people finding companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a science fiction scenario as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros in charge of all this prioritize in terms of profit first and people second.

OK, so ChatGPT assists you write your grocery list. Does your individual convenience outweigh the broader harm it can cause?

The Romantic Disaster: When Your Date Uses ChatGPT.

It seems ChatGPT has found a way to make the dating scene even more challenging. A good friend lately told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who delegates decisions, including the enjoyable ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, imagine how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself building a meaningful bond with a person who often uses a tool that diminishes focus and might bring about societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, originality, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your dating preference actually fits with your life aims.

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach located in New York, uses ChatGPT for some tasks – but she is not an evangelist. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has approached her expressing concern about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to create everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I inquired Jackson if my rule against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is really serving your future goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your values, and it’s essential to find someone whose beliefs are aligned with yours.”

Additional People Voicing AI Apprehensions.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the romantic sphere. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and works in sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about accessing her phone settings and deactivating AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it almost impossible to opt out. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a lack of initiative”.

“It’s like you can’t think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

A recent acquaintance’s breakup was especially ugly. She sided with one of them after discovering the other went to ChatGPT, a infamously poor therapy alternative, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to sit through any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and move on, which is not how things work.”

Suddenly I couldn’t do it by myself. I was too reliant on AI to do the simplest things [at work].

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, has similar sentiments. “I don’t know if I would think differently about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You shouldn’t have to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Public Figures and Silicon Valley Insiders Speaking Out.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use generative AI, it made headlines. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech cautioning about “environmental racism” and expressing fear over users who are “codependent on a machine”. The same goes for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others make statements that are skeptical of AI in their various industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a reason: people agree with them.

This sentiment exists even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest added a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, similar slop on Instagram. Reports suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to use AI to write their code.

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