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Dear Tulsa Bae,
People are using face tuning software on dating-app pictures, and the slow fall into AI is setting our standards on “attractiveness.” What do you do when it turns out the person you’re meeting for a date used facetuning, and the meeting IRL is much different? Do you talk about AI on your first date? Do you let it ride and judge them silently? Run for the hills? Feel encouraged because this person obviously cares about their online image?
Yours,
Sly Robot
Hi Sly Robot,
It sounds like you’re wrestling with two related issues. First is this use of AI facetuning, which, to me, is good ol’ fashioned catfishing, and the second is: how do we talk about the ways AI is rapidly infiltrating every corner of our lives and modern dating, from profile photos to entire conversations?
People have been manipulating their online dating photos for as long as online dating has been around. Filters, angles, and hiding parts of one’s face are nothing new, and that makes sense. There’s real value in putting your best foot (or face) forward with photos that highlight your most attractive qualities while still looking like you.
But some folks take it so far that the person who shows up for the date has a completely different face than the one in their Hinge profile. It’s a real bait and switch! A lifetime ago, when I was dating in New York, I once walked right past my date at a bar because he looked nothing like the guy in his profile. Safe to say, I was not happy. I spent a long time getting ready for that date and was looking forward to it, only to end up feeling tricked and disappointed.
Facetuning is much easier to do with the rise of AI, but the behavior isn’t new: it’s just a shinier, newer way to do it. You asked how you should respond when your date looks very different from their profile. My question back is: how would you respond to any other form of catfishing?
Let’s not mince words: Catfishing is a 100% dealbreaker. If someone is lying about what they look like from the jump, you should be immediately put off, and you certainly shouldn’t trust them. I don’t care if they used AI or not to do it.
Some people might have sympathy for this. Not me! When I was younger, I might finish the date, but I wouldn’t be interested in meeting up again. If I were still dating today, I’d ask about the misrepresentation during the date, and give myself permission to leave early. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I’m past the point of smiling and getting along when someone else is lying about how they look to trick me into a date. No thank you! It’s not completely about the looks, simply about the fact that they were dishonest.
There’s no need to excuse someone else catfishing you just because the specific technology of AI facetuning is getting more popular. Tricking someone is tricking someone. And from your question, it sounds like it does bother you. And that’s okay!
Now, there are levels to this. Bodies and faces change, and sometimes people genuinely don’t realize how different they look from their photos. (in which case, it’s time for new photos). But I think most people know exactly what they’re doing when they facetune themselves, whether they’re using AI or not. They’re trying to gain attention, or score an in-person date and hope that the other person will be polite or passive enough not to bring it up.
For those who aren’t necessarily trying to trick people on Tinder with their facetuning, I see heavy editing (AI or otherwise) as a signal that someone isn’t comfortable with how they look right now. You can have empathy for that while maintaining a firm boundary around honesty and wanting to date someone who likes who they are and what they look like. And to your point about personal appearance: if you’re trying to figure out whether someone actually cares about how they present themselves, don’t look at the edited photos. Look at how they show up. Are they clean, groomed, styled, and appropriately dressed for the occasion? These things matter more than an AI-polished Chad-ified jawline.
I’m concerned about AI creeping into other parts of dating. People are not only using AI to facetune their photos, but are now using AI to write their profiles from scratch and even write their messages. Being in relationship with one another is the most human thing we can do; it’s what we’re designed to do. But now, people are outsourcing the act of communicating with other humans, with the goal of getting into a relationship, to something entirely inhuman. Hell, someone’s AI assistant might be flirting with someone else’s AI assistant while the humans behind them are scrolling social media watching AI videos they don’t realize are AI. What are we even doing? Modern dating is already hard. Outsourcing our humanity (what we look like, how we speak, the act of speaking together) to AI only makes it more difficult.
So in short, it makes sense to be uncomfortable with your date using AI facetuning, because, to be direct, it’s a form of lying. I do think people have to become more vigilant and critically discerning when it comes to what’s human and what’s AI when it comes to dating photos and bios, because we can only control our own behavior, and not that of people generating AI photos of themselves free-soloing for Bumble. Some people like to Google their dates, or Facetime to make sure they are who they say they are before committing to dinner. Some people take offense to being “investigated,” so not everyone will agree with these steps. It’s up to you to decide what you’re comfortable with.
People used to say, “Thank God I met my person before dating apps took over.” I’ve started saying, “Thank God I met my person on a dating app before AI took over.” Who knows what people will be saying next.
