The Perfect Formula For Flirting, Compliments Of Ava, Tinder Bot

Ava began flirting with Tinder-users in Austin, Texas, over the weekend. And what she said totally worked. (Photo: Tinder)

The early phase of any relationship can be both thrilling and exhausting, as one attempts to craft the perfect messages to send back and forth with a would-be love to build trust, interest, and intrigue.

Even for dating veterans, the process can feel daunting. But for one “person” it’s remarkably simple. 

As part of a clever (and debatably cruel) advertising campaign for the film Ex Machina, many Tinder users at SXSW in Austin this weekend found themselves swiping right and then chatting with an allegedly 25-year old woman named Ava. Only Ava turned out not to be a single woman at all. Ava was nothing more than a well-programmed Tinder bot with an uncanny way with words, getting potential partners to pour their hearts out as they answered her questions like, “Have you ever been in love?” “What makes you human?” and “What attracts you to me?”.

Those who found themselves interacting with Ava were in for a rude awakening, however, when she then referred her suitors to her Instagram profile, which contained promotional material for the movie and linked to the movie’s website.

(Ex Machina, helmed by 28 Days later auteur Alex Garland, is, of course, about the Turing test being administered on an android named Ava who then turns the tables on her creators.)

Related: Why Men Always Think Women Are Flirting With Them 

The Ex Machina stunt begs the question: Is there a formula to flirting?

“There are certainly things that people can say or do that reliably predict increased romantic interest — and surely you can program a robot to do some of this,” notes Paul Eastwick, PhD, a social psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin and an expert on the psychology of attraction and human development.

Eastwick points to research of his own involving speed-dating and whether participants found their speed-dating partners to be awkward or smooth. Eastwick and his colleagues found that “that the smoothest dates were those in which participants spent about 50 percent of the time focused on the other person and 50 percent of the time focused on themselves. We also found that people who managed to stay warm while simultaneously (a) avoiding getting too close or (b) remaining too distant tended to do well. You could probably program a robot to do these things.”

Furthermore, the study found that “the behaviors that mattered most in determining a date’s quality were not those that characterized how participants acted toward their speed-dating partners but rather the behaviors that characterized how participants reacted to their speed-dating partners.” That is, a smooth date is one who does a good job being attuned to their partners, listening and responding to their partner’s on points of discussions and engaging them with attuned follow-up questions. How a person reacts to a dating partner is even more important than “grab[bing a partner’s attention], [using] the right pickup line, and ask[ing] provocative questions.”

Adds Art Markman, PhD, also a psychologist at the University of Texas, about the success that “Ava” had flirting on Tinder, “It is not that surprising that people got sucked into the bot on Tinder…. conversations are built on a foundation of trust.  It would be nearly impossible to get around the world if we had to question the reality and the motives of everyone we interacted with. As a result, people generally adopt a reasonably credulous attitude toward others. Second, most of the language we use is only broadly related to what we’re trying to say, which means that we are always filling in lots of details about what the other person must have meant. For example, if someone walks up to you and says, “Do you have a watch?” we are able to fill that in as a request for the time, even though that is not what is stated directly.”

But really, says Markman, the biggest thing Ava exposes isn’t the secret to the rules of attraction, but the fragility of the human ego. “People on Tinder are motivated to think that the person on the other end of the conversation is attracted to them,” Markman points out, “and so they are looking for evidence consistent with their belief. This search for information that is consistent with what you think is happening is called a confirmation bias, and it is a common part of the way people interact with each other.”

In other words, you can’t fault a guy looking for love for wanting to find it, even in a partner who is less than human.

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