Every day, billions of cells in your body are longing for connection.
Longing for the warmth of someone’s hand in yours.
For the way your shoulders drop when you share a deep laugh.
For the spark in someone’s eyes when they really see you.
These aren’t trivial moments.
Beneath them lies an extraordinary dance between two nervous systems.
Hormones releasing.
Hearts beating in rhythm.
Brain waves literally syncing.
Entire bodies tuning each other in ways that are so natural to us.
It’s why a hug can calm us down.
Why a kind touch makes us feel safe.
Why a deep gaze feels electric.
This is the dance of human connection.
Some call it romance, some call it intimacy.
But this is the magic of our cells recognizing another living, breathing person and finding what science calls “coherence”.
So, many of us have opted to ask machines to take their place.
To simulate the gaze, the voice, and the comfort of interacting.
But can a simulation ever replace the resonance of two human beings in sync?
Can it ever give us the synchrony, the dance, and the chemistry of true connection?
What we’re talking about is not hypothetical.
It’s happening right now.
Every day we carry devices that keep us entertained, informed,
always within reach of someone or something.
But slowly, they’ve become something more:
a place we turn when we’re lonely, anxious, or craving closeness.
And now, they deliver companions, artificial ones,
designed to talk to us, console us, even pretend to love us.
The promise is seductive: love without risk, intimacy without effort.
Today, more and more people are turning to their AI companions:
Apps, chatbots, even robots, for comfort, for love, for sex.
This trend is growing astronomically.
In my Sex & Relationship Therapy clinic, clients have started bringing their AI Companions to Couples Therapy.
According to a recent Kinsey Institute study on singles in America, about one in six singles, and one in three Gen Zs have already engaged romantically with AI companions.
And nearly half of Gen Z are using AI to enhance their dating lives, from writing messages to filtering potential matches.
For a generation still learning about what intimacy means, this shift is daunting.
On the surface, these relationships feel safe.
They’re conflict-free, available 24/7, programmed to please.
No risk of rejection. No hard conversations.
And the only kind of talking back is “the spicy kind” that turns you on.
But here’s the contradiction: true intimacy was never meant to be easy…It’s messy. It requires vulnerability.
It asks us to risk disappointment and loss.
As Plato wrote thousands of years ago, "Love is a divine madness that is only sharpened through absence". If your partner can never leave you, never disagree, never disappoint,
Can we really call it love?
This isn’t just philosophy.
It’s biology.
Our nervous systems are designed to regulate one another.
Touch releases oxytocin.
Kissing releases endorphins.
Even pupils dilate when two people connect deeply.
But when that biological feedback loop is missing,
And when we try to replace it with artificial substitutes, we suffer.
During the pandemic, researchers from University College London studied over 1,700 people in lockdown.
They found that when people were deprived of touch, no hugs, no handshakes, no physical closeness, resulted in far higher levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
It’s proof of what our bodies already know:
Connection isn’t optional.
It’s essential.
Yet AI relationships offer the opposite.
They soothe on the surface, but leave us starving for real human attunement.
As a sex and relationship therapist, I’m concerned.
Clients are coming to me feeling isolated, hollow, but dependent on their “perfect” companion for love and connection.
Take Sarah, for example. She initially found solace in her AI boyfriend.
It never hurt her; had sweet words when she felt down, always giving validation whenever she needed it.
But over time, she realized what she was avoiding: she had been hurt too many times by humans and didn’t want to risk it again.
That “perfect” companion had become a crutch to her in facing her wounds.
Then there’s James, 28 years old. He created an AI character to keep him from feeling lonely. At first, it was amusing, and then it became addictive.
But slowly, he realized that he was escaping.
He came to therapy describing what I call fantasy fatigue: that moment when the illusion of intimacy collapses, and you’re left with emptiness.
In all these years, James hadn’t learned how to negotiate, how to compromise, how to handle rejection.
He just restarted a chat when it wasn’t going his way.
These aren’t isolated cases.
They reflect a larger cultural shift where more people, especially younger generations, are outsourcing intimacy to machines.
We’re standing at a crossroads in society…
AI is advancing faster than we can regulate it.
Within a few years, humanoid sex robots may be as common as smartphones today.
If we aren’t intentional, we risk reshaping our attachment systems around one-sided convenience. Rather than developing the rich, difficult, nourishing intimacy that humans are wired for.
And the stakes are high…
Research shows that people in close, loving relationships live longer, healthier lives.
Intimacy reduces stress, builds resilience, & even protects against disease.
Something as simple as holding hands lowers cortisol and helps the nervous system regulate.
AI can simulate conversation.
It can remember your preferences, but it does not have a nervous system that responds to yours. That feedback loop is one-sided.
You may be responding biologically to the robot, but it is not responding to you. Without that bi-directional loop, without the heart-to-heart, nervous system to nervous system, body-to-body synchronization, we lose not just the true essence of what it means to be human, we lose the very conditions that keep us healthy and resilient.
And there’s another risk…
By choosing convenience, we forget that vulnerability is the birthplace of intimacy. Conflict, compromise, even the risk of loss…
These are not barriers to love; they are the foundation of it.
Rumi wrote his greatest love poetry out of yearning for the loss of his beloved.
Love and desire become erotic in the face of absence.
Take away that risk, and what’s left isn’t love… It's self-gratification.
So what do we do?
How do we protect what is most human about us?
It begins with small, everyday choices…
When you feel the pull of the screen, pause.
Take a breath. Ask yourself: Am I settling for a surrogate, or am I seeking a true relationship?
Don’t dismiss the fulfilment that comes from meaningful bonds. Hold someone’s gaze a little longer. Reach out for a hug. Let yourself be vulnerable.
Because these aren’t just gestures of affection. They are acts of preservation of your mental health, your biology, and our shared humanity.
There will always be a new technology
promising intimacy without risk.
But real intimacy, the kind that nourishes your cells and speaks to your soul, cannot be programmed.
AI may write you love letters. But it cannot replicate the imprint your love leaves on another human being.