Ghosting: an awkward, sometimes painful, always laborious process that’s emerged in the modern world of dating. It’s such a faff that we wrote a totally, awfully serious guide to it, but you might not need that now there’s a bot that can do it all for you.
Ghostbot is an app that responses to texts from a person you select as the victim to ghost. The app creates temporary phone numbers that a user can give out, and once selected, adopts an uninterested, yet firm tone, sometimes making use of a poop or pizza emoji to help it masquerade as actual human reaction and not just bot-enabled cowardice. “I just have no time right now” and “I’m busy with work but maybe next week” are all a part of its game until the breakup is successful.
Will Carter, the founder of Burner app that runs Ghostbot, told the Guardian: “We hear a lot of anecdotes about terrible texting from dating matches, but sometimes blocking someone creates an awkward social circumstance. Ghostbot helps you go through the motion of ghosting someone without negative consequences.”
Speaking about the bot’s overall personality, Carter said: “It’s designed to be noncommittal but also have a little bit of snark or character when it interprets a message that’s provocative.” Hence, if it decides someone’s sending an inappropriate booty call, the app will send the poop emoji. Though Carter insists it doesn’t get too mean.
However, if you’re hoping to end that fresh-outta-uni three year relationship of yours, don’t expect the Ghostbot to do too well. “It’s really designed with a specific use case of empowering people to not to have to deal with uncomfortable situations,” he said. Although in most short-term situations, the bot’s sassy and knows it. Carter explained: “People sometimes try to make the bot like them. It won’t, even if the person is completely charming.”