Flirt 2.0: when love speaks the language of algorithms In dating apps, more and more people are letting AI flirt on their behalf

There’s a moment in the day, that suspended limbo between boredom and the desire for distraction, when we’ve already finished rewatching Nobody Wants This but haven’t yet found the energy to wash our face, when millions of people around the world do the exact same thing: they get comfortable, open a dating app, and start scrolling. It’s an automatic gesture, a private ritual, almost meditative. The thumb glides across the screen. Then, suddenly, that profile appears, the one that sparks hope. Perfect bio, balanced humor, emojis used like poetic punctuation. It all seems too good to be true. And, spoiler, we might not be wrong to distrust that witty line and the message that always arrives at the right time, because behind all this, more and more often, there isn’t a person. There’s a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. An emotionless emotional assistant, who, like a Cyrano 3.0, whispers lines calibrated by an algorithm trained to decode desires, tones of voice, and double meanings with the same precision it would use to write an email to your boss. Welcome to the era of algorithmic flirting, where the perfect match no longer comes from emotional connection or fate, and AI not only helps us find love but begins to replace us in the way we communicate it.

Love, actually (but with a prompt)

Until a few years ago, if we didn’t know what to write to our crush, we’d ask a friend for help or, like Rory Gilmore, browse through Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin looking for inspiration. Now we ask ChatGPT. When we sit in front of our phone with the chat open and the blinking cursor taunting us, we jot down a few words and delete them immediately, then beg the AI to help us write something funny that doesn’t sound too desperate. A Match.com study confirms that almost 49% of Gen Z admits to using generative AI for dating advice, or more often, to directly write messages on dating apps. A number that’s thought-provoking,  but not surprising. For example, thanks to this kind of virtual “wingman,” a banal question like “Hi, do you like to travel too?” can become “When I was little I wanted to be an astronaut, then I discovered a Ryanair ticket was enough to feel lost in space.” And who wouldn’t be impressed? It’s not far-fetched, then, that Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of Bumble, imagines a future where every user will have their own AI concierge, a sort of digital assistant that will chat with other assistants to discover potential matches. Basically, two bots flirting with each other instead of us, to test compatibility. Like two Roombas falling in love while vacuuming the algorithmic hallway. A little creepy, right?

The new rhetoric of authenticity

Big tech companies love to say that generative AI will “enhance the authenticity of human connections.” A phrase that sounds like it came from a TED Talk where everyone nods but no one really knows what it means. What they actually mean is that technology can reduce anxiety, stress, and the awkwardness of the first message, theoretically helping us show our best selves. But today, what is our best self? The real one, or the one we perform best? A Cosmopolitan x Bumble survey of 5,000 young users revealed that 69% are excited about AI, believing it will make conversations “easier and more efficient.” And “efficient” is the keyword. Love shouldn’t be measured in efficiency, in how many matches we get, how much time we save, or how quickly we stop texting someone who doesn’t convince us. Psychologist Lalitaa Suglani puts it well: “Outsourcing your intuition means unlearning how to feel.” When we let an algorithm translate what we feel, we’re basically ghosting our emotional selves. And at the same time, every time we seek the right angle, the right tone, the line that seems casual but was actually rewritten three times with the help of AI, we’re kicking our sense of authenticity to the curb.

Chatfishing: synthetic love (beautifully packaged)

In today’s vocabulary of love, the new word to learn is Chatfishing. It’s not the classic scam of catfishing, no one’s pretending to be someone else. It’s a subtler, more elegant, and, above all, more socially accepted form of deception. It means letting AI write part of our messages, improve our jokes, and polish our responses. The Chatfisher doesn’t lie about who they are, but manipulates how they present themselves. Take, for example, the story of Nick and Francesca. He’s 38, works in marketing, and told TheGuardian.com  that he uses ChatGPT to “make conversations more meaningful.” He doesn’t copy and paste, he clarifies, “I just take inspiration.” But then he admits that sometimes the responses he sends don’t really represent him. “It’s like ChatGPT has a better sense of humor than I do,” he laughs. “And people end up falling in love with him, not me.” Then there’s Francesca, 33, who had an intense relationship with a man she met on Hinge. Daily chats, deep conversations, the feeling of finally being understood. Until one day, a technical glitch revealed to the man that she wasn’t writing most of the messages herself. The twist? A prompt error. A message accidentally sent with the phrase: “Do you want me to make it sound sharper?”. “At that point,” Francesca admits, “90% of the messages he got from me came from ChatGPT. So we hadn’t really met, he was basically dating artificial intelligence.” This makes us wonder how much of us is left if 90% of what we say is curated, edited, and rewritten by a predictive model. It all started as a small, innocent communication upgrade, but things seem to have gone too far. And if, by optimizing our conversations to make ourselves more interesting, we risk no longer knowing the difference between real connection and performance?

The algorithm and delegated intimacy

It’s not hard to understand why the use of AI in dating apps is spreading so fast. On one hand, it promises to simplify communication in an age of social anxiety and hyperconnection; on the other, it fuels a crisis of authenticity that risks hollowing out relationships themselves. MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle calls it a “radical shift.” We no longer present ourselves as “ourselves,” but as “ourselves plus our chatbot.” We prefer an extended, calibrated personality, a voice that represents us better than we can. And that’s where the short circuit begins. Because, in the long run, it’s no longer clear where we end and the code begins. By entrusting everything, from our bio to our messages to our post-ghosting excuses, to AI, love (or at least flirting) is reduced to a computational process guided by an algorithm that predicts, suggests, and filters. A love without stumbles, but also without sparks. Psychotherapist Susan David calls this “emotional laziness.” “We no longer want to face discomfort,” she told The Cut. “We just want quick, clean solutions.” Intimacy becomes delegated, vulnerability subcontracted. We can have a bot write the perfect message, but we can’t make it feel the heartbeat that comes before pressing ‘send.’ And that heartbeat, both fear and desire, is what still separates us from machines.

Will we ever fall in love on our own again?

The world of online dating has never been so crowded, or so empty. Between app burnout, profiles homogenized by AI, and bots flirting with each other, love seems lost in the feed. But artificial intelligence isn’t the enemy. Used consciously, it can be a support tool. It can help people with social anxiety or communication difficulties, who, thanks to AI, can finally handle romantic interactions more comfortably. Maybe we should stop blaming the virtual Cyrano and start pointing the finger at ourselves. We want to impress and seem better than we are. We want to be understood, but not be vulnerable. We want intimacy, but without risk. We download apps, swipe, match, chat, always with ChatGPT and similar tools editing our every thought. Then, when it’s time to meet in person, we look at each other not knowing what to say. Because no algorithm can ever write the truest part of flirting, the one where we feel a little stupid, clumsy, naked in front of someone else, hoping for a spark that catches fire without ever turning to ash. And maybe love, in the end, is just a beautiful mistake that works. If that’s true, then being human is far more fascinating than any chatbot or compatibility algorithm could ever make us appear.