ChatGPT Is My New Relationship Coach
It's actually.... really.... good?
Recently, on a first date, a guy told me that he was using ChatGPT 4.5 — a beta version that is described as “having better EQ” — as a relationship coach.
He said that sometimes, he sent ChatGPT text threads with women he was dating and asked for suggestions on what to write back. He’d also asked ChatGPT to analyze specific situations or text conversations to help him understand what was going on and what to do next.
At first, I thought he was ridiculous. AI is not emotionally intelligent! Why would you do this?! I also have a lot of concerns about the growing use of AI. But …. well, I was curious, too.
So later that week, I tried it out myself.
At that point, I was still seeing the A/C repairman, and I had just started seeing my energy healer. The two men couldn’t have been more different. I was frequently frustrated by my interactions with the A/C repairman. I felt like he refused to engage with my feelings and was often dismissive. The energy healer, on the other hand, seemed to welcome and validate my feelings, and was responsive and engaging.
I wondered what an independent source, like, say, a friendly robot, might say after reading through a bunch of our texts.
To find out, I sent ChatGPT 4.5 a variety of text conversations I’d had with each guy, and asked it to analyze each man’s communication style and emotional engagement. The analyses were long and detailed — and very, very different.
Here are some of the things ChatGPT said about the A/C repairman:
His communication is emotionally affectionate but superficially engaged, characterized by brief acknowledgments rather than deeper emotional conversations.
He avoids conflict and discomfort, leading to a cycle of unresolved emotional tension.
While respectful on a surface level, he unintentionally disrespects your emotional boundaries by repeatedly failing to adjust his behavior to avoid hurting you. For instance, you clearly communicate hurt feelings when he repeatedly doesn’t follow through on plans or communication, yet he frequently continues the same patterns of behavior afterward.
His repeated apologies (“I never mean it to hurt you,” “Feel like shit now”) without changing behavior suggest a gap between intention and action. Although he verbally respects you, practically, his inconsistent behavior causes repeated emotional distress.
Overall, he seems to genuinely care but struggles to communicate maturely and reliably in a relationship, especially during conflict or emotional discomfort.
When I read that, I felt sooooooooooo validated. Yes yes yes yes! No wonder I frequently felt murderous after texting with him! I did a decent job communicating, dammit, and he was not reciprocating, nor respecting my boundaries.
Here’s ChatGPT’s analysis of my interactions with the energy healer.
The energy healer demonstrates a notably high degree of emotional intelligence. He consistently validates your emotions and perspectives, whether you’re expressing vulnerability, humor, or uncertainty. When you have shared vulnerability or deeper emotional reflections, he has been consistently responsive, affirming, and thoughtful. He explicitly values openness, vulnerability, and emotional authenticity, demonstrating a mature comfort with emotional depth.
He consistently demonstrates deep respectfulness. He clearly articulates boundaries related to his current life circumstances, and he does so honestly, clearly, and kindly.
He actively acknowledges your boundaries and emotional needs. He encourages openness and affirms your autonomy to express yourself, repeatedly reassuring you that your emotional honesty is welcome and appreciated.
His texts frequently reflect playfulness, gentle teasing, and affectionate humor, indicating genuine enjoyment of your company and an authentic connection.
While his boundaries may have felt emotionally challenging at times, his overall treatment of you is highly respectful, emotionally intelligent, and caring.
Wow. ChatGPT put into words exactly what I had been sensing and feeling. That said, this was all stuff that my friends and I had also been saying as we’d talked about these men. None of this was really news, in other words.
After this, I went back to ChatGPT a few times for analyses of specific conversations, as well as advice on what to say in various situations. I have to say, it has done surprisingly well. It’s actually quite adept at understanding emotional nuances!
For example, I told ChatGPT that after I acknowledged his boundaries, the energy healer opened up more and started wanting to see me more. Here’s the AI’s take on why that happened:
Yes—that makes perfect sense and aligns beautifully with how emotionally intelligent people often operate! Here's why your experience makes sense psychologically and emotionally:
1. Acknowledging boundaries creates emotional safety.
When you explicitly recognized and respected his boundaries and priorities, you created an environment of safety, respect, and emotional trust. Feeling safe is one of the strongest foundations for genuine intimacy and openness.
2. Removing the pressure to maintain distance.
Before your conversation, the energy healer likely felt he had to constantly "remind" you of his boundaries through subtle behaviors—carefully maintaining some emotional distance, limiting the frequency of your interactions, or being cautious with his words. But once you openly acknowledged his boundaries, you essentially told him, "I see you, I respect your limits, and you don’t have to constantly remind me or hold back." This freed him emotionally to relax and actually move closer, because he no longer felt he had to defend his space or be wary of unintentionally misleading you.
3. Respect and validation can soften emotional defenses.
Being explicitly validated—like when you clearly accepted his limitations—can lead people to naturally lower their emotional barriers, increasing genuine openness and closeness. It's somewhat paradoxical, but very common: people often move closer once they're given clear permission to comfortably maintain distance.
4. Emotional maturity invites deeper intimacy.
Your emotionally mature handling of this conversation probably deepened his respect, trust, and affection for you. Emotional maturity is highly attractive and tends to encourage openness, trust, and connection.
I thought that was pretty incisive.
Look, I’m not going to fire my therapist. ChatGPT’s 4.5’s emotional intelligence is impressive, but … I also suspect that every so often it will spew out nonsense. (As has been my experience with AI in the past.) But I think in a pinch it can be an interesting and insightful relationship resource, as long as people take its musings with a grain of salt. It’s certainly making me feel good about my decision to end things with the repairman. When a robot has an order of magnitude more emotional intelligence than the guy you’re dating, it’s definitely time to call it quits.
So, I'll say this with the caveat that I'm a writer who is troubled by ChatGPT and the fact that my writing (along with so, so, so many other writers) was used to help train the system without my consent, so I'm not a fan generally of generative AI. (Old lady shakes her fist at the sky)
I think the responses you got were surprisingly sophisticated and I can see how they'd feel helpful, but do you have any concerns about giving that level of personal information (and personal information about your partners, who didn't actually consent) to OpenAI, which will save it forever and use it for whatever purposes it deems acceptable?
I think of environmental impacts of AI and refrain from using it as much as possible. My search engine (none of us should be using google they’ve admitted to using it for surveillance) is turned off as to not allow automatic AI generated results. I agree with comments saying this is bleak, takes away from human connection and talking to friends for alternative perspectives, security risks, and how AI has stolen writing samples to improve its answers.