Because your phone helped you fall in love, it can bloody well help you get over them. Five ways to use AI and tech to cleanse, reroute, stretch, rebrand and reinvent your way through heartbreak.

 

THE AI BREAKUP: Part One – The Cleanse

Your ex isn’t haunting you. Your algorithm is.

There was a time when breaking up meant removing someone from your life.

You gave back their hoodie. Deleted their number. Maybe cried into a tub of ice cream. The end.

Now? Your ex can live rent-free across approximately 47 different digital surfaces.

He’s in your Instagram suggestions. His friends are in your Stories. Your Spotify is still serving you your song. Your camera roll contains 1,847 photos you absolutely do not need to look at again. And because apparently the internet has no respect for personal boundaries, one innocent late-night search can have you three clicks away from discovering what he had for lunch.

So let’s get one thing straight:

You don’t need more willpower. You need a digital cleanse.

Think of it as an algorithmic exorcism. We’re not deleting your history. We’re making damn sure your history stops running your present.

 

1. Stop letting him appear in your feed

You don’t have to make a dramatic public statement. In fact, you don’t even have to unfollow him immediately.

Mute. Restrict. Remove. Block if necessary.

Instagram lets you mute someone’s posts and Stories, while Restrict limits their interactions with you without the full nuclear drama of blocking. TikTok also lets you mute someone’s posts and notifications.

The AI move: Ask ChatGPT to create your personal Digital Ex Checklist:

I’m going through a breakup. Create a ruthless but sensible checklist of every digital place I should check to stop accidentally seeing, searching for or being reminded of my ex. Include social media, photos, music, shared accounts, subscriptions, location sharing, passwords and mutual digital spaces.

Then work through it like the world’s least sexy IT project.

The goal isn’t to punish him. It’s to stop accidentally punishing yourself.

 

2. Evict his face from your camera roll

You know those 600 photos you haven’t looked at but can’t bring yourself to delete?

You don’t have to.

Archive them. Hide them. Put them somewhere your thumbs can’t accidentally wander at 11.43pm.

Use the photo search in your phone’s photo library to find pictures containing your ex and move them into a hidden or archived folder. If you have a huge camera roll, photo-cleaning apps can help you bulk-review duplicates and unwanted images.

Because there is nothing healing about scrolling back through 2019 because you were looking for a screenshot of a restaurant booking.

 

3. Get him out of your music

This one is sneaky.

You can be doing perfectly well and then Spotify decides you need that song while you’re driving to work.

Absolutely not.

Spotify lets you exclude specific tracks and playlists from your Taste Profile, meaning they won’t influence future recommendations.

Go through the songs, playlists and artists that are basically relationship landmines and exclude them.

Then ask Spotify’s AI/DJ features to introduce you to music you’ve never listened to before.

New breakup rule: if it makes you cry in the car, it doesn’t get to influence your algorithm.

 

4. Sell the evidence

Here’s where we get properly NLIA.

The stuff is often harder than the memories.

The watch. The jacket. The stupidly expensive vase you bought together. The thing he gave you that you “might use one day.”

Girl.

You are not running a museum.

Pick five things that belong to the old relationship and get them out of your house.

And don’t let the emotional labour of listing them stop you. eBay has AI tools that can help generate listing descriptions and enhance product photos.

Or, obviously, list them on Never Liked It Anyway.

Take the photo. Let AI do the boring copy. Put a price on it. Sell it. Turn the physical remnants of your relationship into actual money.

Closure is nice. Cash is nicer.

 

5. Make stalking inconvenient

We’re not going to pretend you won’t occasionally want to check.

You probably will.

The trick is to make the behaviour annoying enough that you have time to reconsider.

Set app limits. Remove the apps from your home screen. Turn off notifications. Unfollow the mutuals whose entire purpose in your life has become inadvertently reporting on your ex.

And create a little AI intervention for yourself:

I’m about to look at my ex’s social media. Don’t tell me not to. Instead, ask me three questions that will help me figure out what I’m actually hoping to find. Then give me one alternative thing I can do in the next ten minutes.

Because sometimes you don’t actually want to know what they’re doing.

You want reassurance that you’re okay.

And babe, you don’t need Instagram to give you that.

 

 

THE CLEANSE CHECKLIST

☐ Mute, restrict or block
☐ Archive the photos
☐ Exclude the songs
☐ Sell the stuff
☐ Make stalking harder

Your ex doesn’t need to disappear from the internet.

He just needs to disappear from your algorithm.

That’s the first step in moving on: not pretending you don’t care, but making it a whole lot easier to care about something else.

 

 

STEAL THIS PROMPT

Feeling tempted to check? Copy and paste this into ChatGPT:

I’m going through a breakup and I’m tempted to check my ex’s social media. Don’t just tell me not to. Ask me three questions that will help me understand what I’m actually hoping to find. Then give me one alternative thing I can do in the next ten minutes that will genuinely make me feel better. Be honest, funny and a little ruthless.

 

 

FAQ

Can AI actually help you get over an ex?

AI can’t do the emotional work for you, but it can make the practical work of moving on much easier. It can help you identify triggers, create new routines, manage digital boundaries, organise your thoughts and turn vague intentions into things you can actually do.

How do I stop seeing my ex on social media?

Mute, restrict or block their account depending on the level of distance you need. You can also mute related accounts, remove notifications and use screen-time or app-limit settings to make compulsive checking harder.

Should I delete photos of my ex?

Not necessarily. If deleting them feels too extreme, archive or hide them instead. The point isn’t to erase your past. It’s to stop your camera roll becoming a highlight reel of a relationship you’re trying to leave behind.

How do I stop stalking my ex online?

Make it harder to do automatically. Remove shortcuts, mute or block their accounts, unfollow mutuals who constantly surface them and set app limits. When you feel the urge, use the AI prompt above to work out what you’re actually looking for.

What should I do with my ex’s stuff?

Keep the things you genuinely love or need. For everything else, consider selling, donating or giving it away. Selling unwanted relationship baggage can turn something emotionally loaded into something useful: cash for your next chapter.

Can technology make a breakup harder?

Absolutely. Constant access to an ex, their friends, old photos, shared playlists and social updates can keep a relationship psychologically present long after it’s physically over. Technology isn’t inherently the problem. Unmanaged access is.

 

 

THE AI BREAKUP SERIES BY NEVER LIKED IT ANYWAY

Part One: The Cleanse
Get your ex out of your feed, your phone and your head.

Part Two: The Reroute
Redesign the everyday routines that keep pulling you back.

Part Three: The Stretch
Use AI to make your post-breakup life bigger.

Part Four: The Rebrand
Forget the glow-up. It’s time for an era change.

Part Five: The Plot Twist
Use AI to imagine the life you hadn’t planned for.