Thinking of You
Carmen: If anyone ever hacks into my app, I’ll be embarrassed mostly about the time I tried to serenade Geneva to the tune of “Thinkin’ Bout You” without realizing that the pre-created “Thinking of You” cloud doesn’t say “Thinkin’ Bout You” at all.
In my defense, it was late, and I was in love.
Passcode
Hansen: I’ve decided this app would be perfectly for couples who want/need to be secretive about their relationships, like queer couples where one is closeted. You can set a passcode to the app so no one can get in there and see what you’re saying. It keeps the photos you take out of your photostream, which is a nice feature for, uh, some kinds of pictures you may or may not send.
Carmen: I used the passcode setting for a bit to experience “a private life” (what’s that like, BTW.) but my phone couldn’t deal with it so I turned it off. I hate nothing more than lagging, but I bet your phone never lags because you don’t know my life. If we had the kind of relationship where we exchanged really sexy images and not pictures of our dogs / the snacks we were eating, losing that feature would have been a huge drawback.
Knowing What’s Up With Your Partner 24/7
Kaitlyn: Couple incorporates a bunch of markers, subtle and not, to let you know what your partner is up to at most times. The understated among them are features like message read and “typing…” notifications, a status bar stating whether your partner has the app open, minimized, etc. and what device they’re using (mobile or web app), and even a spot listing the artist and song name if they’re listening to music. I discover a new feature like this every time we use the app, and they’re what really drive home the feeling of being together. They do something that is often hard to maintain in long-distance relationships: sharing what your partner is doing without them having to explicitly tell you themselves. And I appreciate that so much, because the worst part of being away from Camille is not being able to sit in the same room with her while we do our own thing, peeking up occasionally to smile at how pretty she is when she’s focusing or stressed and flips her hair every two seconds. If I can’t be in the room to hear her sing along to a song, it’s nice that I can at least know what she’s listening to.
Carmen: Geneva can see what song I’m listening to when I’m on my way to work and I could tell where she was on her cross-country journey to Winnipeg last week for the holidays. We know when the other is online (and the app is damn reliable at getting their online/offline status right, and even tells you when the app is minimized and when they’ve seen your messages), and we never f*ck up the time zones because the app tells you exactly what time and what location your boo is at, all day, erry day. It feels lame to say that the app has made it possible for Geneva to be a part of my every waking moment without actually being there, but it’s true.
Yvonne: Gloria comes home for the weekend (read as: one full day) every two weeks. So we use the calendar section to remind each other of her flight schedule.
Ali: Abby turned off the music feature because me knowing what she was listening to while she was on a train in Philly and I was in South Carolina totally creeped her out.
Sketch and Livesketch
Camille (Kaitlyn’s person!): There’s something childishly satisfying about the app’s drawing feature, which works like a compressed version of Microsoft Paint. Because I am five years old at heart, I can’t resist sending the occasional doodle to remind my girl I’m thinking about her (I don’t need no stinkin’ button to do it for me). Sure, I could tell her I love her for the forty-fifth time this morning, but it’s way cuter in bubbly green letters surrounded by hearts and rainbows. Until I have the money to send Kait flowers as penance every time I upset her, I’m gonna end up relying on cute finger-drawn pictures of our stick-figure selves holding hands in front of a giant double rainbow to say I’m sorry. Just you wait.
Hansen: We started drawing pictures for each other. At first they were silly, like pictures of what we could see, then we started just drawing stick figures reenacting our favorite sex positions, to be honest. We’re weirdos. Maddie’s studying for the GRE, so one night we just spent way too long drawing how to calculate the area of different triangles. So Couple made that fun for us.
Yvonne: Unlike normal texting or sending photos or videos, drawing is a really fun way to draw cute stuff for each other.
Our masterpieces.
The live drawing option is a great way to spend a few minutes with each other in the middle of the day. Or a great way to play tic-tac-toe, which is what me and Gloria like doing.
We drew these together.
Pictures, Audio and Video
Yvonne: Surprisingly, one of the best features of this app is the audio notes. The sound is really sharp that makes it sounds like your partner is right there next to you which is comforting, especially for our temporary long-distance relationship. Gloria likes to send me audio notes of her singing, speaking in British and Philly accents and to occasionally scold me.
And Gloria and I are pet parents so of course I have to send her photos and videos of our puppy.
Ali: When we first figured out we could send video in Couple, this is what happened:
Then I sent her a video of my Aunt’s new Siamese kitten.
And she responded with a picture of her mom’s dog.
Abby was better at sending me cute stuff. I want you guys to know that. If we aren’t adorable, it’s entirely my fault.
Lists
Carmen: We both got super heavy into the shared lists and calendar features available in the app. They’re a space for really important planning operations, y’know? Like your next big road trip. Or the names of your future puppies who are all named after boozes and liquor drinks. Or if you were a real person, groceries and to-do lists for your kids. But let’s get back to the puppies for a second.
Ali: I was totally into the list function right from the very beginning, but I run my whole life on lists, so that’s not surprising. Abby and I are planning to road trip next summer and we kept having ideas of places we wanted to visit and sticking them on the list. Then I started one for movies we want to movie night and made the mistake of listing one of Abby’s all-time favorite movies as “Gidget Does Something Or Other.”
A punitive alternate list correction was issued.
Verdict?
Carmen: The app worked smoothly for both of us: I’m on an iPhone 4 and she’s on whatever phone it is Google makes. The app gave us experiences we weren’t really able to have from Canada to America on the daily before: we thumbkissed, we drew a really terrible illustration of a dog chewing its foot together, we sent pictures and applied filters and nobody else had to see them in order for us to share them with each other, we laughed, we cried. So are the gays of our lives. Considering Couple.me is free and Geneva and I don’t get a lot of daily, private space to really interact, I’m super into the fact that it exists. The app feels like our own little world. I can open it and see her face whenever I want (her photo and my wallet photo of her makes TWO even); I can use it when I’m on the go or when I’m working and it’s just as fast, free, and easy as it was the other way around. When I’m using Couple.me, Geneva isn’t just one conversation I’m having: she’s the conversation I’m happening. For two people who mostly wish they were cuddling all of the time, that’s a nice change from hiding my chat windows at work and struggling to reply to important messages on the metro.
Couple.me is well-designed, fully functional, and pretty much flawless. And it’s customizable, so it will look just like your relationship every time you open it up. It’s kind of perfect, really. Just like the person you love.
Couple.me put my long-distance relationship into the 21st Century. And I’m really into it.
Kaitlyn: Thumbkiss is the kind of ridiculous icky thing that you don’t want to think about anybody else doing, but in the safe space of your relationship (which is of course adorable and perfect and immune from the pitfalls of disgusting sappiness of every other couple) it is maybe the cutest thing in the world. When I read Vanessa’s essay and spent thirty minutes crying uncontrollably, Camille playfully Thumbkissed me until I erupted in giggles. When I was drunk and wished I could kiss her for real, we Thumbkissed. When we were talking about how distance sucks and ran out of constructive things to say, we Thumbkissed. It’s silly and kind of pointless in a purely literal sense, but in the moment, sometimes the physical bump is better than any words you might come up with. That’s something Gchat and texting and even Skype can’t get at, and that’s why, to me, Couple is worth using.
I just need the world to know this happened.
Hansen: We started recording videos for each other, and taking silly pictures, and live sketching during our nightly Skype sessions. You might say we kind of got hooked on it? When I asked her about the app, she said, “It’s a little creepy but it’s also really addicting. To draw pictures with you and get naughty pictures of you. Yeah, I like that part.” The most irritating part of Couple for me is super pedantic, but I didn’t like that in the live sketch, my iPhone 5’s area was a lot bigger than her iPhone 4’s area, with no option to scroll down, so virtually 1/4 of the area was unusable. Stupid, I know, but annoying all the same. To be truthful, we still use regular texting out of the app more often because it’s more convenient. Couple is a little intense for a new couple, though. And I forget about it a lot, so when we’re together in person, I don’t think to take pictures of us together on it or anything. Some parts of it, I know we’ll never use: the location feature? That’s still just creepy to me. But it’s nice to open the “Moments” part of the app and see all of the pictures we’ve drawn together and pictures we’ve sent each other. It’s a cute little thing to add to our relationship, but I don’t see it being a central part of our relationship anytime soon.
Yvonne: The best thing about Couple is that everything is in one space. So instead of texting them, calling them, leaving nauseating Facebook wall posts, you can do all of that in this one portal. I mean, we still do all of the above anyways, but the Couple app definitely creates a special space for only the two of us that I can look back at when I especially miss my baby.
A snapshot of what our “moments” look like.
Overall, Couple.me allows us to effectively share the little moments in our mundane lives that make it a little easier to be so far away from each other. And of course, we always tell each other how much we miss the other person.
I think Couple.me is definitely worth downloading.
Ali: I thought we were gonna use it for one day, make fun of it together within the app itself and then it would disappear into oblivion.
One of many MANY screenshots of us making fun of this app.
But even though we were prepared to hate it, it’s really grown on us. It’s got a visually appealing, calming aesthetic (“I couldn’t see us fighting in here. We’d save that for iMessage”). We enjoy the stickers. It’s never not once crashed. Our critiques include the need for social media accounts to unlock the web beta (Abby doesn’t have a Twitter, so she’s stuck using the app only on her phone), the fact that you can’t use lists or calendars on the web beta (yet. Hopefully they’ll add that). Overall, though, this is a really solid app and is, in my opinion, only as co-dependent and terrifying as you make it.
Please let us know how you’re using this potentially disturbing but potentially amazing echo chamber of an app in the comments below!
This has been the fifty-ninth installment of Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy tech column. Not everything we cover is queer per se, but we talk about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology.
Header by Rory Midhani
Feature image via Shutterstock.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAH. I also use this app and I’m fairly certain those beaver stickers make up about 98% of my relationship.
my favorite is the one that’s sleeping so hard there is a droplet of drool coming out from its mouth. that is me. all me.
Hello! I am desperate to find the beaver stickers – especially the zonked drooling one. Where on earth would I start looking (google is rubbish)
Wait was this post supposed to convince me to download Couple.me or convince me that Carmen and Geneva are the cutest, I lost track
My intention was both of these things.
YOU GUYS
I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WERE BEAVERS
makes it literally 2x as good
this just makes me infinitely grateful that as of two ish months ago I am no longer in a long distance relationship. after 3 years of skype and twitter messages and similar apps, i’m really ready to have relationships that are tech free.
“SHE GOES HAWAIIAN, ALI” is my new favorite thing in the world.
And being that you know Abby, can’t you hear it in her voice?! I can hear it in her voice.
I have very strong feelings about 60s beach movies.
So, I don’t quite know how this happened but this post made me cry, probably because of missing my long-distance girlfriend so much. I’m about to send her this article, though, with instructions to read it before our Skype date tomorrow morning so we can discuss.
Awwww—we’re all virtually hugging you! Imagine us all as those beavers. They look pretty huggable.
Sending so many hugs.
Wait…with the live sketch can you both draw on the same thing? Drawing a stupid picture together sounds like great fun.
It is—neither of us can draw, but we drew little stick figures with hearts.
ok, yvonne is #1 critter of all time now, no contest
So. This sounds great, in that, this is weird but I totally could see using it especially in LDR type situations and that seems really particularly relevant to my life right now. (Thanks a-camp, for providing me the best friends I see at most twice a year and so often geographical challenges in every type of relationship.) But for those of us who like, date multiple people… this pretty much can’t be used except with one of them, right? Or like, can you have like, multiple couple space things?
…
Yep. This world we live in is a strange place.
I was wondering the same!
I need to know this!
From what I can tell, it’s not very poly-friendly. My girl and I each had to “un-pair” from our exes when we logged in to try it together, which was nice and awkward.
Ah. Thanks for the answer. I guess that doesn’t sound like a good idea then. :\ Having to unpair with someone on the app just to thumbkiss some other girl would be even weirder than those words I just wrote.
WAIT TELL ME MORE HOW DID IT KNOW YOU WERE PAIRED? DID YOU USE IT WITH YOUR EX-HUMANS? DOES IT LOG IN VIA FACEBOOK? THIS IS SO DELICIOUSLY WEIRD AND CREEPY TELL ME MORE KAITLYN THANK YOU <3
THANK YOU! I was wanting to ask the same thing. I’d love to connect with multiple partners, and my overseas bestie, etc. I think there’s a similar app called Avocado, which means you could have that app and Couple for two partners, but if you have more than two … :/
Yeah there’s a few different ones, I think there’s also one called Pair.
It just seems like a pile of awkward with multiple partners though. Like “sorry, we can’t try that app because I use that with someone else” and “actually I’d like to use this app with this other person, so like, I guess we have to break up on the Internet now, but don’t worry I still care about you and see you next Friday?” just seem like the first world problems I never want to have.
Agreed. And if one app is more functional or more adorable than another, then one partner gets more benefits and it could all turn into a hierarchy drama. I think I’ll stick to Facebook messages, texts and Snapchat for now. :)
this is hilarious. More seriously, I think it would be really interesting if someone poly reviewed these apps, and compared and contrasted them.
Awwww. I want a girlfriend to thumb kiss.
My housemates (two straight girls, not a couple) heard about this, downloaded it, paired with each other, and proceeded to use thumbkiss chase each other’s thumbs around the screen and see if they could do it with their noses.
Not gonna lie, I have a considered thumbkissing with other body parts just to see how good my aim is.
Just downloaded it today, just in time for being away from my person for a week and each dealing with our unsupportive families. Obsessed already. Thanks for the recommendation, you guys!!
Home for the holidays, convinced my GF to download it….after thumb kissing “This is weird”…We’ll try again when she’s not out with her family drinking PBRs.
The reviews are all pretty adorable.
Okay, so now that my gf and I have downloaded it and started playing around…it is so fun!!!
I’ve noticed, though, that my phone battery is TANKING. Is this a thing that the reviewers experienced? (iphone 5, ios7)
I haven’t noticed this! Maybe try using wifi as much as possible to lessen the battery drain?
I didn’t experience this—try deleting and re-downloading.
You are all the cutest couples… and that conversation about syncing and getting uterus engaged was hilarious!
Now all I need a girlfriend so I can use this app. No fair! I want to use it NOW
My girlfriend and I are in a temporarily long distance relationship while I do a job in Cali, and i can honestly say that I’m pretty sure this stupid app has saved our relationship on more than one occasion. Nothing conveys an apology quite like a remorseful beaver.
Comment award!
I Second that
What’s worse than codependency? The term “critter”. I hate it so so much. I’m sorry, haha it’s just the creepiest.
Omigodddddddddddddd Geneva and Carmen ARE TOO CUTE. Beaver stickers for the win.
I am definitely going to be downloading this app with my co-dependent. She read the article over my shoulder and this sounds like it was built for us.
Question, though: are the thumbprints like our REAL thumbprints, or just a generic image?
Nah it’s just a pic of a generic fingerprint.
it’s generic. i know this bc sometimes eli pawkisses geneva with it
Omigod, now we each need to get an animal to up the cute factor.
This app sounds kind of strange but also quite cool for people in LDRs – I kind of wish I had an appropriate mobile device to try it out on. My thousands-of-miles-away girlfriend and I both like making lists a lot, so that would probably be one of the principal uses. That, and pictures of her dog.
Making lists together would indeed be very useful! Even when you’re not long-distance, actually.
All these comments, and no one has mentioned the dog in a bow-tie yet? Because that is frickin’ adorable. The whole family in formal wear!
My ex would love this, I would hate this. Therein.
Why does someone need to know what you’re doing all the time? Mystery? Space? Boundaries?!
Admittedly, we weren’t in a LDR, and I can see that would help you feel closer. (Though possibly still in a creeper way.)
There’s something no one has mentioned yet… When you use Couple and then break up (which I have recent experience of), once you “un-pair” all the lovely messages and pictures you exchanged are lost in the aether. Gone. Not great for either coping with a breakup if your partner broke up with you, or for keeping the happy memories if it was mutual.
i can’t decide if this makes me sad or not. it makes me sad, actually. i love the archive of our chats from gchat and such!
reading old gchat conversations is legit one of my favorite things to do, i think i actually creep out my girlfriend with the amount of times i say “babe i was reading our chat from august and remember when…” so yeah, if my archive of relationship “stuff” just disappeared into the ether i would probs cry for forever.
Is there no way to back this up like with other messages or photos?
It is cute, but IDK if it is necessary? I use FB messenger and 1. the cute emoticons are all free. 2. I send the person I am seeing pictures through messenger, which is pretty private and I have never had an issue with it. 3. The thumbprint thing is a little weird for me/ just not necessary. Also, if you break up, FB messenger does not erase everything.
Just my two cents!
This is the cutest thing. To be fair, pretty much anything that is endorsed by Ali/Abby, Carmen/Geneva, Yvonne/Gloria, Hansen/Maddie and everyone else here being adorable is a thing I can’t say no to.
I particularly liked the point of “everything is in one place and you don’t have to put all the things on social media just to share them with one another.” Brb, downloading this.
it still strikes me as unnerving. like yeah, they dump it off your app after you break up with somebody, but doesn’t it mean there are stored records of your past relationships somewhere? not that they would use it, but there’s something weird about all that intimacy floating out there.
(sighs.) I need to get more with the future…
caaaaasually thumbkissing my girl under the table at *~family brunch~*
“No mom, it’s not the mimosas, my phone is just giving me the gigglefits”
It keeps the photos you take out of your photostream, which is a nice feature for, uh, some kinds of pictures you may or may not send.
THIS WAS AN AREA OF CONCERN FOR ME. I don’t know where this stuff is stored – I doubt it’s just on your phone, so they probably store stuff on their own servers, and I am skeptical of how safe it would be. Tbh I wasn’t only concerned about the co-dependency elements of this but why I was giving up so much personal information to a single app I didn’t know enough about.
(Before the inevitable questions: yes I do have similar concerns about Facebook/etc. I am a geek who usually signs onto things as soon as they come out but so so very wary of security/privacy.)
But all that aside, this was a great review, y’all! My partner and I will probably just stick to sending each other those oversized smileys periodically.
AIEEEEEEE I AM DOWNLOADING THIS MY PERSON AND I ARE LONG DISTANCE RN AND OH GOSH BEAVERS
SO MANY MUCH FEELINGS
wish my gf had a smartphone more than ever now so that we can be adorbs in one spot. :(
Baidu wants the RT6 to join its existing fleet in the second half of 2023, for a small-scale trial, and plans eventually to have 100,000 of them on the roads.