Swipe Fatigue is Real — But Can Meta’s AI Assistant Save Your Love Life?

AI is slowly moving from classrooms and office jobs into the dating world. Meta’s new AI assistant for Facebook Dating promises to make finding love easier—but will queer daters finally get the help they’ve been asking for?

If you’re 30+ years old, single, monogamous, and clinging to a sliver of hope that “the one” is out there, chances are you’ve braved the apps. But let’s be honest: it’s exhausting. You swipe, you match, and then you’re hit with yet another profile that casually suggests a threesome, or the dreadful small talk you wish would just end already.

Now Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is convinced it has the perfect solution: an AI dating assistant baked into Facebook Dating. Announced this fall alongside its “Meet Cute” feature, the assistant acts like a digital matchmaker. You can literally tell it “Find me a Brooklyn girl in tech,” and it’ll pull profiles that fit the bill. It also offers profile tips, conversation starters, and even date-night ideas. Sounds useful, right?

But here’s the catch: Facebook dating doesn’t exactly have the best reputation, especially among queer women. For years, users have complained that it’s clunky, underpopulated, and not LGBTQ+ specific. Compared to Tinder’s 50 million daily active users or Hinge’s 10 million, Facebook’s dating pool is a drop in the bucket. Will an AI helper really change that? 

AI Wingmen Are Already Here

To be fair, Facebook isn’t the only app experimenting with AI. Over the summer, Hinge, Tinder, and Bumble rolled out AI “wingmen” to help daters keep conversations going, rewrite bios and craft opening lines when human inspiration runs dry. Grindr even launched AI tools that double as travel guides AND sex coaches (yes, you can literally ask Grindr’s AI how to improve your oral technique). Sapphic app HER uses AI for smarter matching, while the queer-oriented app Taimi relies on it for safety features and better compatibility recommendations. 

The gays are already taking AI into their own hands too. Just ask Syd and Kelly, the lesbian Youtubers behind Matchmaking with AI, a lesbian dating show. In their series, 8 random queer women answer questions about their jobs, hobbies, values and dating preferences before AI pairs them up. Think MTV’s Are You The One? but DIY, queer, and a little chaotic. The experiment proves one thing: people are ready to outsource their love lives to algorithms, even if the results are messy. 

And yes, some daters are straight up asking ChatGPT for advice on sex, dating strategy, and how to flirt. Who needs a sex therapist when Siri 2.0 can talk you through strap etiquette? 

Can Facebook Play Catch Up?

Meta is betting big that AI will give its struggling dating platform new life. The assistant is pitched as especially helpful for older singles, who are less app-savvy, but still want love. On paper, it sounds like a win. But for queer women, the platform’s shortcomings—small user base, lack of visibility, and zero LGBTQ+ specificity—remain huge barriers.

All in all, AI is proving impossible to escape. Whether it’s suggesting your Hinge prompt answers or setting you up with a Facebook “Meet Cute,” the bots are officially in the dating scene. But is that a good thing?

Maybe AI will finally help us find and lock down our very own Brittany and Santana love story. Or maybe it’ll just accelerate the swipe fatigue we’re already drowning in. Either way, the choice is yours: jump in on the AI love train, keep fumbling through robot-free dating apps (if those exist still), or rebel completely and fight for IRL meet-cutes at bars, clubs or your weekly queer book club—praying a new member joins soon. 

XOXO,

See you on the apps—or not.