In an effort to breathe life into the seemingly long-lost art of flirting, the popular dating app Tinder has introduced the Game Game, “an interactive AI chat experience that serves up just the right amount of cringe,” according to a press release from the app that was released on April Fool’s Day.
I appreciate Tinder’s self-awareness. After playing the game seven times in quick succession, I was, in fact, cringing internally.
It’s no secret that young people are dating less and spending more time on their phones alone at home — a habit that, at worst, leads to a delay in traditional dating and romantic milestones and, at the very least, stunts their ability to flirt and approach potential dating partners in public, as the Deseret News has previously reported.
As Maxine Williams, founder of We Met IRL singles group, told NBC News last year, the pandemic is one of the largest reasons why Gen Z “has struggled with flirting.” A lot of young adults missed out on “having the opportunity to develop those skills,” she said.
The Game Game, available for a limited time on iPhone for users in the United States, might be Tinder’s tongue-in-cheek way to try to combat this issue.
“Flirting can be stressful, so The Game Game turns it into something fun. It throws users into over-the-top, meet-cute scenarios that make the unexpected feel less intimidating,” Tinder’s press release said.
This is not an exaggeration. My first scenario found me dangling over Copenhagen on a broken amusement park ride. Instead of hyperventilating and calling 911, Tinder wanted me to flirt with Alexander, the 35-year-old real estate agent sitting next to me with “a charming demeanor.”
In order to interact with Alexander, I had to talk into my phone and win him over with my flirting. Depending on what I said, I won points for being “charming,” “sparkling,” “alluring,” “dynamic,” etc. If Tinder thought my banter was too “quirky” or “cheeky,” I lost points.
For me to win, Alexander and I had to make plans to go on a date.
I know the anticipation is killing you, so I won’t beat around the bush: Alexander and I did make dinner plans, which would happen who-knows-when, since we would be presumably be waiting for emergency services to rescue us for who-knows-how-long.
And our romantic future wasn’t the only thing I was uncertain about. I was also confused about Tinder’s process for awarding points. What’s the difference between charming and cheeky? What does “sparkling” mean? What counts as dynamic?
The more I played, the more unsure I was.
My next Game Game scenario found me sitting next to Dominic, a 34-year-old occupational therapist with an inexplicable Australian accent. I had accidentally fallen asleep on him during a train ride.
During our conversation, he told me that as an occupational therapist, he enjoyed helping organize people’s lives. I flirtily asked him how he’d organize my life to make time to grab dinner with him.
Would I ever say something like that in real life? Of course not! But for whatever reason, Dominic was just enchanted and made dinner plans with me on the spot.
I ran through a slew of Tinder’s AI characters: There was Leo, a 33-year-old pilot whom I ran into at a laundromat; Andrew, another pilot whose sunglasses I accidentally stepped on during a beach clean-up in Sydney; Matthew, a 30-year-old project manager whom I was trapped in an escape room with; and so on.
I managed to land dates with every single one of them. This isn’t a brag: I found that each AI character, and therefore our interactions, lacked nuance and depth, and therefore I spent every conversation bemusedly trying navigate whatever weird situation the Game Game threw me in.
This isn’t a surprise, considering that AI very rarely fosters genuine and authentic connections.
It’s also not a surprise that Tinder has turned to AI to enhance its user experience, even if it was just for April Fool’s Day — last month, Match Group, which owns Tinder, announced that it was “increasing investment in AI,” according to The Guardian.
In general, AI companions are on the rise, both in a platonic and romantic sense, as companies try to help users combat their loneliness, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
But the idea that AI companions can actually help with loneliness, much less create authentic, emotional connections, remains dubious.
The value of the Game Game is similarly dubious. It felt like exposure therapy: Get Gen Z in the most extreme scenarios possible and force them to flirt.
Will it actually help Gen Z brush up on their flirting skills? I’m not so sure.
At the very least, I hope that, instead of finding themselves hundreds of feet above Copenhagen in order to flirt, Gen Z will just flirt on the safety of solid ground instead.