{‘It shows such a laziness’: why I refuse to date someone who uses ChatGPT|The AI Dating Dealbreaker: The Reasons I Refuse to Date a ChatGPT Enthusiast.

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

I smiled tightly as this man described using generative AI for the initial stages of planning the wedding. (They also hired a human wedding planner.) I replied politely. Internally, however, I decided: if my future spouse came to me with wedding ideas courtesy of ChatGPT, there would be no wedding.

Contemporary Dating Red Flags: AI Usage.

Many individuals have standard 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 dominated my social media and party conversations, I’ve come up with a new one. I refuse to date someone who employs ChatGPT. (Or any generative AI program 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”. Suppose 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 editing 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 Minor ‘Ick’ Becomes a Ethical Stand.

“Getting the ick” is what we occasionally call being repulsed. Part of having an ick is not fully understanding why you found someone’s behavior so off-putting. For instance, I once felt the ick watching a man drink a smoothie from a straw. At first, my ChatGPT dislike felt like a simple ick, a kneejerk feeling of revulsion that had no any clear reasoning.

Now, in late 2025, even relying on ChatGPT for seemingly innocent tasks like designing a workout plan or selecting an outfit feels like a conscious political act. We are aware that the energy-intensive tech depletes our water supply and hikes electricity bills. It is marketed as a placebo for real relationships; lonely, disconnected people discovering 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 create your shopping list. But does that individual benefit offset the wider negative impact it creates?

How AI Ruins Dating and Connection.

It seems ChatGPT has found a way 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 requested for restaurant suggestions. Why get close to someone who delegates 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 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 kneecapping our collective attention spans and possibly heralding total apocalypse. Intellectual curiosity, creativity, originality – I probably won’t find what I prize in someone who believes “productivity” means asking an app to summarize a movie plot so they don’t have to spend their time, you know, watching it.

Ask yourself if your [dating] choice is truly supporting your long-term goals.

Ali Jackson, a romantic coach based in New York, employs 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 strict. She said no, go forth and evaluate, though it might reduce my dating pool – about 10% of the adult population now uses the tech.

“Ask yourself if your preference is truly serving your long-term goals,” Jackson said. “In your case, I would presume that’s one of your values, and it’s important to find someone whose beliefs are in sync with yours.”

More Individuals Expressing AI Concerns.

The dislike for AI applies beyond the romantic sphere. 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 almost impossible to disable. Pereira thinks that using ChatGPT “shows 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.

A recent acquaintance’s split was especially ugly. She supported one of them after discovering the other went 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 endure any difficult human feelings,” she said. “They just wanted to process something and continue, which is not how things work.”

Eventually, I found not handle it on my own. I had grown too reliant on AI for even routine tasks.

Richard Barnes, a 31-year-old marine biologist and server in Hawaii, shares comparable views. “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 depend on it to make a grocery list. Your life is probably not that hard. We can make the list together.”

Public Figures and Tech Insiders Speaking Out.

Guillermo del Toro’s statement that he’d “rather die” over using generative AI garnered significant attention. Ditto for, SZA’s Instagram stories rant against the tech warning 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 respective industries. I believe these quotes go viral for a cause: people sympathize with them.

This sentiment exists even among those in the tech sector. Last month, Pinterest introduced a filter that lets users turn off AI content. Meta lets users mute, but not entirely deactivate, comparable 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.

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