{‘It demonstrates such a lack of effort’: the reasons I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT|The AI Dating Dealbreaker: Why I Won’t Date a ChatGPT User.

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

My smile was courteous as he detailed how AI tools assisted in the wedding preparations. (A human wedding planner was eventually hired.) I responded courteously. Internally, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Relationship Dealbreaker.

Many individuals have standard relationship dealbreakers. Doesn’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as alarms of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my social media and party conversations, I’ve developed a new one. I will not see someone who uses ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the dominant and thus the target of my scorn.)

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

From ‘Ick’ to Ethical Position.

The phrase “getting the ick” refers to that sensation of being unexpectedly turned off. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so off-putting. For instance, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a simple ick, a automatic feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate political act. We know that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, detached people discovering companionship or even falling in love with code is not as much a sci-fi plot point as it is just the way things go now. The ultra-wealthy tech bros in charge of all this think in terms of profit first and people second.

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

How AI Ruins Romance and Connection.

As if it hadn’t done enough already, ChatGPT has in some way made dating even worse. A good friend recently told me that she spent a night with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who delegates decisions, including the fun ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s hard to picture myself establishing a meaningful bond with a person who often uses a tool that erodes concentration and might lead to societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, originality, uniqueness – I probably won’t find what I value in someone who believes “productivity” means prompting an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

Consider whether your relationship criterion actually aligns with your long-term aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for specific tasks but is not promote it. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has approached her complaining about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I inquired Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, proceed and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

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

More Individuals Expressing ChatGPT Apprehensions.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and works in sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She dreams about going into her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it almost impossible to disable. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “shows such a laziness”.

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

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated breakup. She supported one of them after discovering the other went to ChatGPT, a notoriously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they needed 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, who is 31 and works as a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise weary. “I don’t know if I would think otherwise about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You shouldn’t have to depend on it to make a grocery list. Your life is likely not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Well-Known Figures and Silicon Valley Professionals Speaking Out.

Guillermo del Toro’s declaration that he’d “choose death” over using generative AI received significant coverage. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech cautioning about “environmental racism” and expressing fear over users who are “codependent on a machine”. Ditto still for when Simu Liu, Alison Roman, Céline Dion, Emily Blunt, and others issued statements that are critical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

Even, to an degree, the people who power the tech industry. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely remove, comparable slop on Instagram. Sources suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley techies refuse to use AI to write their code.

{Luciano Noijeen, a lead software engineer working in Greece and the Netherlands, told me that he eagerly used AI in the past to write or punch up his coding.|According to Luciano Noijeen, a {lead|