Text With The Fake Boyfriend/Girlfriend Of Your Dreams
Now all of us can enjoy the thrill of receiving thoughtful text messages from a special someone.
A new service launched Tuesday called Invisible Boyfriend (or Invisible Girlfriend). For a monthly fee of $24.99, the online beta platform allows users to select a partner’s photo, name, interests and a story about how you two met. Then, over the course of the next four weeks, the fake boyfriend or girlfriend will send 100 text messages, 10 voicemails and one postcard.
“We help people avoid the societal stigma of being single by giving them credible, social proof they’re in a relationship,” the company says on their websites.
Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend use real humans, not robots, to send the text messages, co-founder Matthew Homann told USA TODAY Network.
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth][three_fourth_last]
However, even though your “invisible” partner will be just one persona, it’s not just one person behind the text. The service is using tech company CrowdSource, another St. Louis-based firm, to handle responses. Your text message appears in a dashboard that allows the responder to see your previous texts and the backstory you created about how you met.
“The text messages feel real and have context. In an early start, we thought we could do it with robots, but it wasn’t convincing enough to fool mom and dad and even yourself,” Homann said.
The service seeks to mirror the realities of an actual relationship, but only to a point. Homann said that if you send an explicit text your account will be flagged. And as for pictures?
“You’re invisible boyfriend will not see any pictures you send. We strip those from the service, no pun intended,” Homann said.
Homann came up with the initial idea after going through a divorce about 8 or 9 years ago. His mom called him near Thanksgiving and asked if he was bringing someone. He said he wished he could have told her he was dating someone.
“I really started to realize that there’s lots of people who get these questions and people tend to judge you if you’re not in a relationship,” he said.
Today he’s happily remarried — and, yes, they both use Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend. But just for beta testing.
