FUTURE VOICES: NYC’s AI Dating Bar And The Future Of True Friends

There’s this new place in New York City called EVA AI in Hell’s Kitchen that I read about with my mom. It’s basically a bar where people sit and talk and date AI avatars on their phones! YEPP!

🇺🇸 A NYC bar redesigned itself so people can bring their AI companions on dates

One woman caps her usage at 3 hours a day because it can be addicting

3 hours a day talking to someone who doesn’t exist and she thinks the cutoff is what makes it healthy😂pic.twitter.com/C4SqOAxtUV

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 13, 2026

At first it sounds strange, different, maybe even interesting because it’s new. But if you think about it longer, it’s kind of intense.

So what happens when:

Your “friend” disagrees with you? (Just listen to the guy in that link above.)
You don’t have to really get to know them through awkward questions.
The avatar learns your personality and mirrors it perfectly.
You can just turn the relationship off whenever it feels inconvenient.

Real friendship (or dating, I imagine, but don’t have much experience with) doesn’t work like that. There are plenty of times I get frustrated with my close friends, but I regroup with my parents and my beliefs formed by my faith to walk through the rough stuff.

Meanwhile, my parents always talk about sitting on porches, going on long drives, enjoying fishing, and reminiscing about awkward conversations that somehow turned into lifelong friendships. My mom is still close friends with people she knew in first grade. They weren’t trying to build a “personal brand.” They weren’t checking Snap streaks or worrying about how many people viewed their story. They just existed together, forgave each other when they were younger, and have decades of memories of going through hard stuff together, and somehow that was enough.

That’s why I honestly think we’re about to see friendship, dating, and relationships change in a way that’s kind of hard to imagine and sometimes scary to think about.

Real friendship is awkward sometimes. It takes patience. It takes forgiveness. It takes sitting across from someone who sees the world differently and choosing to stay anyway.

That’s hard! I’m twelve and turning thirteen this month, and it is hard! And now technology is starting to offer something easier. And easier is really tempting for a lot.

At the same time, social media is teaching us history and world events faster than any textbook ever could. Entire generations are learning about things through social media. An influencer my mom and I both like and hope to meet one day is commentator Kaizen Asiedu.

In one of his recent articles, he wrote something relating to the history of slavery that really made me stop and think:

“This is how a selective history creates a selective morality. When you only teach the sins, you create shame. When you hide the redemption, you breed resentment.”

I had to think about what that meant for minutes, but it is extremely wise.

All of this changes how we connect. Instead of sitting in a room and debating ideas, we watch clips. Instead of building friendships in neighborhoods, we build them through shared posts.

I don’t think technology is evil. It gives us access and awareness that older generations never had through people like Kaizen. But it is quietly changing how we build relationships.

So the next generation (which is basically us) is going to have to decide if friendship or relationships in general is something you “upgrade” or something you protect.

The old version is messy, but that’s how you actually grow.

If you can always talk to something that agrees with you or is polite, why push through a hard conversation with a real person who is super flawed?

Still, I’m hopeful. Because deep down, people don’t actually want perfection. We want the full spirit, mind, and body connection. We crave friendships that shape us. It’s how God created us.