Quartz have come up with a helpful alternative to ghosting: the Quartz Breakup Trainer is a chatbot which lets you practice breaking things off, and helps you perfect the art of that "it's not you, it's me" text. It's an artificial intelligence, so there's no chance of you hurting its feelings, and it incorporates insights from an array of dating and relationships experts, meaning it can offer you advice throughout your interaction with it.
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The simulator places you in a hypothetical situation, where you've just received a text from somebody who you have been on one or two dates with, but who you're not interested in seeing again. Maybe he wants to introduce you to his parents. Or he might just be texting: "u up?" You are then offered a multiple-choice option of how you would like to respond, with helpful hints on how to proceed at every stage of the conversation. Check it out.
"You want to be concise and clear, to the point that the person who receives the message is like ‘okay, he's not interested,'" says dating coach Carmelia Ray, whose insights helped create the chatbot. "Sometimes people try to pad reality, but people need to understand that if you’re dating, you’re going to be let down. You’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea."
This article originally appeared on Men's Health US.