The App That Lets You Fake A One-Night Stand

A new dating app called App Night Stand is, in the words of one of its creators, Siarhei Samuseu, “an alarm clock, but with a twist.”

The twist is this: It’s an alarm clock that wakes you up at an agreed-upon time along with a Facebook friend (or a “single in your area”) who either accepted your invite or sent you one himself. When you DO wake up and look at your phone’s screen, it’s at a little picture of your faces in bed together, as if you just spent the night hooking up. It’s a virtual one-night stand, but without any real involvement of another person, and, for that matter, without any of the actual sex stuff either.

Mostly the app consists of you and a stranger waking up at the same time in your separate homes. And then, if you want, talking about it.

App Night Stand asks you to sign in through Facebook (on which it promises never to post without your permission, and why would you give it??) and then select your sex as well as the preferred sex/sexes of your shared alarm buddies. Users can send invites to Facebook-connected “singles” in the area, or invite Facebook friends to set an alarm. The app is a little slow here — it took a few tries before BuzzFeed editor Katie Notopoulos and I were able to get invites through to each other — but it’s worth it just to hear the alarm, for which users can select from four options, but for which “Sexy Siren” (which really just sounds like a normal, loud, semi-terrifying siren) seems like the obvious choice.

For anyone who becomes an instant App Night Stand enthusiast, it’s important to keep in mind that only your first 30 invites are free. After that you can buy them in amusingly sized packages of 50, 80, or 130 ($0.99, $1.99, and $2.99, respectively). If you are extraordinarily ambitious, you can buy one million invites for $12.99.

Once you have an invite accepted (or accept one yourself), your App Night Stand alarm will go off at the selected time, and you’ll have the option to chat with your virtual hookup. It’s there that the apps’ users, if they so desire, could attempt to make this weird thing they just did into a genuine dating prospect by exchanging personal information, numbers, and so on. Or you could pretend (after your pretend sex) to make a hasty exit.

It sort of makes you want an app for each and every part of a daily routine as it pertains to every stage of a relationship. HAPPy Hour. Brush-app your teeth together. Appancake breakfast. No, it’s not a good idea, I’ve been thinking about it too long. Sometimes a thing can sound good in your head, but then you write it down and it’s only half on paper before you understand that all of it is meaningless.