Although the phrase “invisible girlfriend” carries some scary implications, I’m surprisingly okay with Invisible Girlfriend (or Boyfriend!), an app that launched yesterday just in time for one of the most potentially awkward days of the year for singles. Sure, the premise is a little weird, but no more weird than society’s ferocious insistence that everyone find one partner with which to unite their souls for all of time, right?
After getting divorced nine years ago, Matthew Homann bought the invisibleboyfriend and invisiblegirlfriend domains, largely just to have a “a good cocktail party story.” But at a 2013 Startup Weekend in St. Louis, Homann and his business partner Kyle Tabor placed first after pitching Invisible Girlfriend and Invisible Boyfriend as a business designed to give users “believable social proof” of a romantic relationship.
Essentially, the app works by generating voicemails and texts that BetaBeat describes as “read[ing] like they come from a human”; invisible partners can also hold a text conversation with users. Homann wouldn’t clarify to BetaBeat exactly how he provides this service, except to say “you can tell in many cases there’s a real person on the other end of the message.”
The service also provides pics of fake beaus by using selfies submitted from app users rather than stock images. Sure, Invisible Girlfriend/Boyfriend seems creepy at best and unhealthy at worst (at $24.99, it’ll cost you to try the service out, too); but to be honest, it’s easy for me to imagine a scenario in which convincing your toxic family in the short-run that you’re in a relationship might be better than the alternative.
Hopefully Homann and Tabor will also one day devise an invisibility app that will also allow users to dramatically reveal romantic partners to family or friends when the time is right.
(via Topless Robot)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
