{‘It demonstrates such a lack of effort’: the reasons I decline to date someone who uses ChatGPT|The AI Romantic Dealbreaker: Why I Refuse to Date a ChatGPT Enthusiast.

The scene could have been pulled from a Nancy Meyers production. I found myself in Oregon wine country, inside a rustic-chic barn that reeked of discreet wealth, for a close friend’s rehearsal dinner. “This location is ideal,” I told the groom-to-be. He moved closer as if sharing a confidential detail: “I discovered it on ChatGPT.”

I smiled tightly as this person explained using artificial intelligence for the initial stages of organizing the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I replied politely. Internally, however, I decided: if my prospective spouse approached to me with wedding input courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

The New Relationship Dealbreaker.

Some people have common relationship dealbreakers. Won’t smoke, is a cat person, wants kids. Over the past few months, as warnings of an approaching AI-induced apocalypse have flooded my news feed and social conversations, I’ve come up with a new one. I refuse to see someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any AI tool really, but with 700 million weekly users, ChatGPT is by far the most popular and thus the object of my scorn.)

I’ve heard all the “what if’s”. What if I use it for my job, but I hate it otherwise? What if I use it to assist people? How about I only use it as a proofreading tool – I’d never use it to “write” anything. To all that I say: there are individuals 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 sometimes call being turned off. A key aspect of having an ick is not really understanding why you considered someone’s behavior so unseemly. For example, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT aversion felt like a mere ick, a automatic feeling of revulsion that lacked any clear reasoning.

But here we are, in autumn 2025, and using the tool even for harmless tasks such as planning a fitness routine or choosing what to wear feels an increasingly political choice. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech drains our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is sold as a substitute for real relationships; isolated, detached people discovering companionship or even developing feelings with code is not as much a science fiction plot point as it is just the way things go now. The megarich 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 personal ease outweigh the broader harm it can cause?

How AI Spoils Romance and Connection.

As if it hadn’t done enough already, ChatGPT has somehow made dating even worse. A close acquaintance lately told me that she went out with a man, and in the morning proposed they get breakfast together. He took out his phone, opened ChatGPT, and requested for restaurant suggestions. Why build a relationship with someone who delegates decisions, including the fun ones like picking where to eat? If someone is so unmotivated they’ll consult ChatGPT to plan a first date, consider how little effort they’ll spend six months in.

I just cannot envision forming a profound, lasting connection with someone who frequently interacts with a technology that’s weakening our collective attention spans and perhaps signaling total apocalypse. Inquisitiveness, originality, uniqueness – I likely won’t find what I value in someone who believes “productivity” means asking an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to waste their time, you know, watching it.

Reflect on whether your relationship preference genuinely aligns with your life aims.

According to Ali Jackson, a New York-based dating coach, she may use ChatGPT for particular purposes but doesn’t endorse it. In the past six months or so, she says “every one” of her clients has come her expressing concern about “chatfishing” or people who use AI to generate everything on their dating apps – all the way down to the DMs they send. I asked Jackson if my strike against ChatGPT chumps was too harsh. She said no, go forth and judge, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

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

Additional Individuals Voicing ChatGPT Apprehensions.

The aversion for AI applies beyond the romantic realm. Ana Pereira, 26, lives in Brooklyn and does sound for multiple live music venues across the city. She fantasizes about accessing her phone settings and disabling AI features on all her apps, though tech platforms from Google to Spotify make it nearly impossible to opt out. Pereira believes that using ChatGPT “demonstrates such a laziness”.

“It’s like you are unable to think for yourself, and you have to rely on an app for that,” she said.

Two of Pereira’s friends recently had a complicated breakup. She sided with one of them after discovering the other turned to ChatGPT, a notoriously poor therapy substitute, not their partner, when they wanted to talk about their feelings. “It’s like they refused to endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and move on, which is not how things work.”

Before long, I could not handle it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for the routine work.

Richard Barnes, who is 31 and is a marine biologist and restaurant server in Hawaii, is likewise skeptical. “I am not sure 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.”

Celebrity and Industry Resistance.

When director Guillermo del Toro said he would “rather die” than use AI tools, it made news. Similarly, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech warning about “environmental racism” and showing 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 skeptical of AI in their respective industries. I believe these quotes spread widely for a cause: people sympathize with them.

This sentiment is present 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 deactivate, similar content on Instagram. Reports suggested that “cursor resistance” is on the rise, as some Silicon Valley professionals refuse to 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 punch up his coding.|According to Luciano Noijeen, a {lead|