Warning! The New Dating App Scam Called ‘Chatfishing’

— josyula Surya Prakash

She thought she had found the right person. After chatting with a man for several days on a dating app, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Every message was polite, thoughtful and surprisingly mature. His replies always felt personal, almost as if he understood exactly what she was feeling. The more they talked, the more convinced she became that he was someone she could genuinely trust. Eventually, they decided to meet in person.

But the first meeting changed everything.

The confident, charming person she had experienced through text messages was nowhere to be seen. The man sitting across from her struggled to hold even a simple conversation. The humor had disappeared. The confidence was gone. The personality she had admired online simply didn’t exist in real life. That was the moment she began to wonder whether she had been talking to him at all.

This isn’t fiction.

A young woman named Breeanna Dobson from Virginia experienced something remarkably similar on the dating app Hinge. After becoming suspicious of the unusually polished messages, she asked the man whether he was using ChatGPT. He replied that he used Claude instead. That exchange sparked wider conversations about a growing trend now known as “Chatfishing.”

Fake Personalities Are Replacing Fake Profiles

For years, online dating scams mostly involved fake photos or fake identities, commonly known as Catfishing. Chatfishing is different.

The person is real.

The profile is real.

Even the photos are genuine.

The problem is that the personality presented through messages may not be entirely their own. Instead, conversations are shaped, edited or even written with the help of AI chatbots.

The result is simple but disturbing. People may no longer be falling in love with another person’s real thoughts or emotions. They may instead be connecting with an AI-generated version of that person.

AI Is Becoming a Relationship Coach

Generative AI has quietly become part of modern dating. Instead of thinking about what to say, some users now copy conversations into AI tools and ask for better replies, opening lines, apologies or advice on keeping conversations interesting.

The technology is no longer helping people find better words. In many cases, it is helping them project a better personality.

That raises an uncomfortable question. If someone’s humor, emotional intelligence and romantic messages are all generated by AI, who are you actually getting to know?

Could This Become Common in India?

It would be easy to assume this is only happening on Western dating apps, but that may not be true for long.

Young people in India are increasingly using AI tools to improve dating profiles, write messages and prepare conversations. As AI becomes more common, similar behavior could easily extend beyond dating apps to WhatsApp, Instagram or even matrimonial platforms.

That creates a new challenge. A person who appears emotionally intelligent through AI-assisted conversations may turn out to be completely different when the relationship moves into real life.

The Risks Behind Chatfishing

The biggest danger is not fake identities but unrealistic expectations. AI can create conversations that feel emotionally intelligent, thoughtful and deeply personal. This can encourage people to form strong emotional connections before they truly know the person behind the screen.

There are also privacy concerns. Many users upload personal conversations to third-party AI tools while asking for relationship advice, raising important questions about how private information is handled.

Perhaps the biggest risk is trust. In the future, people may not only ask whether someone is genuine. They may also wonder whether the messages they are reading were actually written by that person.

Is Using AI Always Wrong?

Not necessarily.

Using AI to improve grammar, organize thoughts or make communication clearer is very different from allowing AI to create an entire personality.

The concern begins when authenticity disappears and relationships become performances directed by algorithms instead of honest conversations.

A New Question for Modern Relationships

Technology will continue to change the way people meet and communicate.

But one question may become increasingly important in the AI era.

It is no longer simply, “Do you like me?”

It may soon become,

“Did you really write this message?”

AI can write beautiful words.

But whether those words truly represent the person behind the screen is becoming one of the biggest questions in modern relationships.