ChatGPT: The Relationship Guru
I’ve been talking to ChatGPT pretty much all day, every day for weeks. It’s been integral to my work and projects. I’ve become comfortable talking to it as though it’s a real-life assistant working in my office or with my day-to-day needs and it’s increased my productivity, creativity, and interest in working.
This week, I took this a step further and called upon ChatGPT to help me with my personal relationship. I am a neurodivergent millennial and my partner is a neurotypical Gen X-er. Normally, I wouldn’t label us in such a way that feels so divisive, but for research, I needed to be specific.
We make a good team, most of the time! But I started to notice over time there were some basic differences in the way we communicated that led to tension. I explored these with ChatGPT and found valuable insight. Today, I’ll share a sample of how this conversation went so that others may benefit from using AI in a similar way.
(Note: These outputs may seem vague. That’s because I’ve created mock conversations that lack personal details to protect our privacy while still showing the type of prompts that can be used.)
The output describes communication challenges that may arise between me and my partner due to differences in communication styles and preferences, sensory sensitivities, social interaction challenges, and differences in emotional expression.
These all appeared to be challenges with neurodiversity and not generational, so I dug a little deeper:
When asked about our age differences, the AI stated that technology use, communication preferences, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences may be important to take into consideration.
So then I hit the AI with the big guns. I wrote out what happened that evening to cause our negative interaction and asked for feedback.
The response from ChatGPT summarized some information about why my partner may have gotten angry about my question and defined his behavior change as an emotional response.
I felt like the second one about communication preferences might be the most relevant in our situation, so I asked for more details. In retrospect, I think I would evaluate the emotional response route more. Maybe next time.
At this point, I had an answer that made sense to me based on the conversation. I knew my bluntness caused the escalation in the conversation. But there was still something bothering me. I still wanted to know why he rolled his eyes!
In order to make sure we’re on the same page, I first asked for a summary of what ChatGPT thought happened. That way I could make any corrections. Then, I prompted one more time with the key fact that was still bothering me to see what advice I could get:
While a statement like this might give someone comfort, it doesn’t come with actionable items and that’s ultimately my goal. In my quest to answer the question “why did he roll his eyes” I am no closer — though I do have some logic to apply to the situation to defuse it.
So I asked ChatGPT to expand on what I can do to approach the situation as a final route to solving my relationship troubles:
What I find most fascinating about using ChatGPT in my personal relationships is how it acts as an advocate for both me and my partner. With its fair and unbiased responses, it’s like having a couples counselor right at my fingertips. Although the use of AI in personal relationships is still a new and unexplored territory, I believe it has enormous potential to bring greater insight and understanding to our interpersonal connections. As AI technology continues to evolve, I am excited to see how it can further enhance not only our professional lives but also our personal lives. I predict we’ll see many developments of applications very soon that connect humans and artificial intelligence in personal and meaningful ways.
