WASHINGTON — For those tired of the question “Are you dating anyone?” comes a new web application that creates an invisible boyfriend or girlfriend to help you fake being in a relationship.
Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend can be summoned when dealing with nosy relatives, curious coworkers and wanna-be significant others who can’t take a hint.
The apps, founded by St. Louis’s Matthew Homann and Kyle Tabor, produce “believable social proof” that users are in a relationship, according to Betabeat . They generate fake but realistic photos, text messages and voicemails.
Currently in a beta testing phase, a user gets to design a boyfriend or girlfriend from the ground up, choosing a name, age, interests, hometown and personality.
The site even helps create a story about how “the couple” met, by filling in the blanks in several narratives — sort of like a romantic Mad Libs.
Even though the boyfriend or girlfriend is make-believe, the cost isn’t.
The service is “$24.99 per month, and includes 100 texts, 10 voicemails, and 1 handwritten note,” Tabor told Betabeat. “We’re looking to create both less- and more-expensive packages as we learn what our users need.”
According to the service’s website, “You can text your new invisible boyfriend and he’ll text you right back.”
Asked by Betabeat how the responses were believable, Homann said the recipe is a “secret sauce,” but hinted “you can tell in many cases there’s a real person on the other end of the message.”
To make the make-believe boyfriends and girlfriends look more realistic, users are also invited to submit a selfie to be used as someone else’s significant other.
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