AI-Powered Dating Is All Hype. IRL Cruising Is the Future

I am, admittedly, a big flirt. I love everything about the exchange of getting to know another person. The playful banter. The rush of dopamine. The sexual subtlety and subtext of everything not said. Flirting, to me, remains one of the last human endeavors where people are intentionally trying to find common ground. It’s pure possibility, absolute magnetism. It’s also an art that can’t be faked, or—despite Silicon Valley’s best attempts—perfected by AI.

That, of course, didn’t stop Big Dating from going all in on virtual intimacy this year, during which the focus shifted from endless swipes to AI-powered matchmaking. As the narrative around dating fatigue reached new heights, the trend toward sincere connection was an overdue correction by an industry that, across the last decade, built itself on ruthless scale, maniacal ambition, and profit incentives, only to realize that the answer was ...