{‘It demonstrates such a laziness’: the reasons I decline to go out with someone who uses ChatGPT|The AI Dating Dealbreaker: The Reasons I Refuse to Go Out With a ChatGPT Enthusiast.

The setting could have been taken from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a stylishly rustic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This venue is ideal,” I remarked to the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if revealing a secret: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I grinned politely as this person explained using artificial intelligence for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a professional wedding planner.) I responded politely. Internally, however, I resolved: if my prospective spouse came to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Modern Romantic Red Flags: Artificial Intelligence Use.

Many individuals have usual romantic non-negotiables. Doesn’t smoke, prefers cat person, desires kids. During the past few months, as alarms of an impending AI-induced apocalypse have dominated my news feed and party conversations, I’ve come up with a fresh one. I refuse to date someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with countless weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the target of my disdain.)

People often pose the “what if” scenarios. Suppose I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? What if I use it to help people? How about I only use it as a editing 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.

How a Minor ‘Ick’ Turns Into a Moral Issue.

The term “getting the ick” describes that feeling of being suddenly turned off. A key aspect of having an ick is not fully understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once got the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. Initially, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a mere ick, a automatic feeling of disgust that lacked any solid reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even using ChatGPT for apparently innocent tasks like creating a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a deliberate political act. We know that the power-hungry tech depletes our water supply and increases electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for human connection; lonely, detached people finding companionship or even developing feelings 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.

Sure, ChatGPT can generate your shopping list. But does that individual benefit offset the wider damage it creates?

How ChatGPT Spoils Dating and Connection.

It appears ChatGPT has managed to make the dating scene even more difficult. A good friend lately told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning suggested they get breakfast together. He pulled out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and asked for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who outsources decisions, including the enjoyable ones like choosing where to eat? If someone is so lazy they’ll hit up ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how minimal effort they’ll spend six months in.

It’s difficult to picture myself establishing a meaningful relationship with a person who consistently uses a tool that diminishes focus and might bring about societal collapse. Inquisitiveness, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I value in someone who thinks “productivity” means prompting an app to recap a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] preference is really serving your long-term goals.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based relationship coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular tasks but doesn’t endorse 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 rule against ChatGPT users was too strict. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might limit my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now utilizes the tech.

“Ask yourself if your choice is truly serving 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 values are aligned with yours.”

Others Who Have the ChatGPT Ick.

Other people experience the AI ick, and not just when it comes to dating. Ana Pereira, 26, resides in Brooklyn and does sound for various live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about going into her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it nearly 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.

A recent friend’s breakup was especially ugly. She supported one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously awful therapy alternative, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they didn’t want to sit through any uncomfortable human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to deal with something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for the basic tasks.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is similarly weary. “I am not sure if I would think otherwise about someone who uses ChatGPT, but I would be like, ‘come on,’” he said. “You don’t need to rely on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Celebrity and Tech Backlash.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use AI tools, it made news. Ditto for, 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 critical of AI in their various industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a cause: people agree with them.

This attitude is present even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users hide, but not entirely deactivate, comparable content on Instagram. Reports indicated that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals won’t use AI to write their code.

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