Lead with the need, not with the product. "I have been really lonely and I have been talking to a chatbot most nights" lands. "I have a chatbot girlfriend" gets a laugh, because you handed them the funny version first. Pick one person, say one sentence, and ask for one specific thing.
Why the order of the words decides the reaction
The same information arranged two ways gets two entirely different responses.
Start with the app and you have made the app the topic. The other person now has to react to a piece of software, and the only scripts they have for that are jokes, because that is all they have ever seen about it.
Start with the need and you have made your life the topic. Loneliness, insomnia, a hard year, nobody to talk to after nine at night. Everyone has a script for that, and almost nobody finds it funny.
So: what happened to you, then what you have been doing about it. In that order, every time.
Three scripts
**A friend.** "This is going to sound odd. I have been pretty isolated since the spring, and I have ended up talking to a chatbot most evenings. It is more of my week than I want it to be. I am not asking you to fix it, I would just rather you knew."
**A partner.** Harder, because there may be a hurt in it. Keep it factual and do not oversell the confession. "I want to tell you something before it gets bigger. I have been using one of those companion apps at night. I think it is because I have not known how to say some things out loud. I am telling you because I do not want a secret." Then let them react, including badly, without immediately managing it.
**A doctor or a therapist.** Do not lead with the app at all, because there is no diagnosis and no pathway for it, so the app is not the thing they can act on. Lead with what is measurable in your life. "I have been very isolated. I am not sleeping. My evenings have gone." Then, if it is relevant, mention how you have been filling them. That gets you into the conversation that actually exists.
Ask for one specific thing
The request is what converts a confession into support. Without it, they will say "that's ok" and change the subject, and you will feel worse than before you spoke.
Pick one:
- **"Text me on Thursday and ask how it went."** The single most useful ask, because it puts one fixed point in your week.
- **"Can we do something on a weekday evening?"** Aim at the hour that is actually hard, not at a Saturday afternoon that was never the problem.
- **"Just do not make it a joke."** You are allowed to say that in advance, and people usually honour it.
- **"Hold the passcode."** If you have blocked the app and site on your phone, someone else knowing the code is the difference between a block and a suggestion.
Who to tell first, and who not to
Tell someone who has been through something. People who have had a bad year of their own are markedly less likely to find yours amusing.
Tell one, not five. A group announcement invites a group reaction, and group reactions default to comedy.
Do not start with the person whose approval you need most. The stakes make you oversell it, and their reaction carries more weight than any single reaction should.
Do not start on the internet in a place that rewards a good story. You are looking for a person who will remember on Thursday, not for replies.
If they laugh
Some of them will, and it is worth knowing in advance that it is usually reflex rather than judgement. The category is new, most people's entire exposure to it is a headline or a joke, and they do not have a considered position to fall back on.
You have two decent responses. The first is to hold the line once: "I am being serious. It got to be most of my evenings." That reframes it for a lot of people immediately.
The second is to stop and try someone else. One person laughing is data about that person, not about the thing you said.
What is worth resisting is the conclusion that this proves you should have kept it quiet. The whole value of saying it out loud is that a thing you have told someone behaves differently from a thing you have not.
If you are under 18
If the app is one you are not supposed to be on, the conversation is more awkward and more necessary.
Tell a parent, an older sibling, or an adult at school. The version that works is the same shape: what has been happening in your life first, the app second. If deleting it has not held, ask them to set the passcode on your phone's screen time settings so the block cannot be lifted at midnight.
If it feels impossible to tell anyone you know, Samaritans is **116 123**, free, 24 hours a day, and they take calls about things that sound small.
What you might get back
Some people will ask an awkward question that turns out to be a good one. "What do you talk about?" is the common one, and answering it honestly is often the moment you hear your own situation properly for the first time.
Some will offer to fix it, quickly and badly. You can decline that. "I do not need a plan, I needed to say it" is a complete sentence.
And some will tell you about something of their own, which is the most common outcome and the one nobody expects. Nearly everybody has an evening habit they are not proud of. Yours has a newer name than most.
Common questions
**Do I have to tell anyone at all?** No, and plenty of people cut down without saying a word. It is just that a boundary held alone is a boundary with one point of failure, and the point of failure is you at eleven at night.
**What if they tell other people?** Say the sentence that prevents it, plainly, at the time: "I would rather this did not go any further." Most people manage that. Choosing someone who has kept something of yours before is the better protection.
**Should I tell my GP?** If it is affecting your sleep, mood or how much you see people, yes, and frame it in those terms. There is no diagnosis for this and no NHS pathway, so what you are asking about is the loneliness or the low mood, which is a conversation that does exist. [Where to get support for compulsive chatbot use](/guides/ai_chatbot/where-to-get-support-for-compulsive-chatbot-use) sets out what does and does not exist.
**How do I explain what it actually is?** Plainly, and without defending it. "It is an app that talks back like a person, and it remembers things, and it is always available." That is enough. You are not obliged to justify the technology to someone who has never used it.
**What if saying it out loud makes it real?** It already is real, and the version living only in your own head is the one that grows. [Is your chatbot relationship a problem?](/guides/ai_chatbot/is-your-chatbot-relationship-a-problem) is the honest self-check if you want to be clearer before you speak.
Sources
- [American Psychiatric Association, Internet Gaming Disorder](https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming). That gambling disorder is the only behavioural addiction identified in DSM-5-TR, which is why there is no diagnosis to disclose here.
- [Computational analysis of a 27,000-member Reddit community of people in relationships with chatbots (arXiv, 2025)](https://arxiv.org/html/2509.11391v1). Reported benefits of reduced loneliness and always-available support, with the authors' selection-bias caveat.
- [UK Chief Medical Officers' commentary on screen time and social media](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-cmo-commentary-on-screen-time-and-social-media-map-of-reviews). The precautionary position, and that no causal relationship is established.
