Rhythm

Last updated 18 September 2026

Terms

Rhythm asks one question a day and, when two friends’ lives are converging, introduces them. This page is the agreement between you and the person who runs it. It is short on purpose, and it says only what is true today. Rhythm is new and small, but sign-in is open: anyone with a Google account can create one. These terms apply to everyone who uses it.

Who you are agreeing with

Rhythm is run by one person, operating as a sole proprietor in Washington state, United States. There is no company behind it yet. When this page says “Rhythm” or “we”, it means that person. You can reach them at [email protected].

By signing in, texting the Rhythm number, or otherwise using Rhythm, you agree to these terms and to the Privacy page, and, if you link a mobile number, to the Messaging page. If you do not agree, the way to say so is not to use it.

Who can use it

Adults, 18 and over. Rhythm is not for minors.

Be honest about how this is checked, because it is only checked one way. Rhythm asks your age on the web, before it asks you anything else, and takes your word for it. An answer under 18 stops there: no questions are asked and no circle is created, though the year you gave is kept so that the question is not simply asked again. So this is still a requirement on you rather than a check Rhythm can actually perform: by using Rhythm you are telling us you are at least 18. If Rhythm learns that an account belongs to someone under 18, it will remove the account and delete what it holds about that person.

What Rhythm is, and is not

Rhythm is a question a day between you and one friend: you each answer without seeing the other’s, both answers open at once, and that one person reads yours whole. Underneath it is a reading of whether two lives are moving the same way, drawn as a name, a photo, and two overlapping curves — no number, no reason, no score. When a feature called the exchange is switched on, two friends already shown as converging may each also be shown one short piece, at most a dozen words, of what the other actually wrote, in trade for one of their own. Neither is ever shown which of their own words went. It is off today, it is described in full on the Privacy page, and, apart from the paired question described below, it is the only circumstance in which anything you write is put in front of another person. Right now introductions are between friends only. Introducing people who do not already know each other is built but switched off, and will stay off until a person decides otherwise.

Here is what it is not, stated plainly so nobody relies on something that is not there:

Your account

Text messages

Rhythm sends you nothing by text unless you link a mobile number, and linking one is how you turn text reminders on. Linking takes at most two messages: on a phone you text Rhythm a short code and get one line back saying the number is linked; on a computer Rhythm texts you a verification code, and once you reply with it a second line says the number is linked. After that Rhythm sends at most one short message a day — either that the day’s question is ready, or that somebody in your circle has started or answered a question with the two of you in it. Each carries a link to the website, which is where the question is actually answered. Rhythm also replies to the keywords below whenever you send them. Nothing else is sent to your phone.

You can turn reminders off on your Settings page at any time. That leaves your number linked and sends nothing, so turning them back on is one press rather than linking again. Message and data rates may apply; Rhythm does not charge for messages.

Reply STOP to end messages at any time, HELP for help, or PAUSE for a week off. Mobile numbers and opt-in consent are never shared with anyone. See Privacy and Messaging.

Email

Rhythm emails you, at the address you sign in with, when a question is waiting for you and when somebody answers a question with you in it — at most one in the morning and one per answer, never more than six a day, and never carrying a question or a word of what anybody wrote. It is on from the start and you can turn it off on your Settings page. Privacy describes it in full.

How to behave

Most of this is what you would expect from a decent person. It is written down so that it can be enforced.

Blocking and reporting are available everywhere. Blocking takes effect immediately and is absolute: the two of you are no longer connected, no curve between you is kept, and no invite from either side works. Reports are reviewed and acted on; Rhythm is one person, so that is not instant, and anything urgent or dangerous should go to the police first and to us second. Accounts that harm people are removed without appeal.

Meeting people in person

This is the part that matters most, so please read it even if you skip the rest.

An introduction on Rhythm is an introduction between two adults who each decide what to do next. Rhythm is not in the room. It does not know where you are, cannot see how it is going, and is not responsible for what either of you says or does — online or in person. Whether to meet, where, and for how long is your decision, and it is your risk.

Some plain advice, offered because we would rather you were safe than surprised: meet somewhere public the first time. Tell a friend where you are going and who you are meeting. Keep your own way home. If something feels off, leave — you do not owe anyone an explanation. And if someone treats you badly, block them and tell us; if you are in danger, call the police first.

Content you write

Your answers and your words stay yours. Rhythm claims no ownership of them.

You give Rhythm one narrow permission: to store your content, to send each answer to an automated reader so it can be turned into the numbers matching runs on — and, when portraits are on, into the short private description of you that the Privacy page describes — and to show your name and Google profile picture to a person you are introduced to. The permission covers one more thing, and only when the exchange is switched on: to show one friend whose life is converging with yours a fragment of at most twelve words of something you wrote, exactly as you wrote it, at the same moment as a fragment of theirs is shown to you. That fragment is chosen automatically; you are not asked first and you are never told which of your words went. Privacy sets out the whole of how it works, what the bar is, and what its limits are, and reading that section is the way to decide whether you want to keep answering. The permission covers one further thing, and it is the centre of Rhythm: to show the whole of what you write in answer to a question put to you and one other person — the morning’s question for the pair, one either of you asked for, or the opening question carried in an invitation — exactly as you wrote it, to that one person, once you have both answered. That is a separate question with its own answer; your answers to the question for you alone are never used to write it, nobody reads what you write there before that person does, and what you write there is also used to keep Rhythm’s own private description of you current. Privacy sets that out in full too. That is the whole license, and it exists only to run the service for you. Rhythm does not publish your answers, does not sell them, and does not show any answer of yours to the question for you alone to another person whole. They are sent to Anthropic to be read; Anthropic’s terms for that API say it does not train its models on what is sent through it, and Rhythm relies on those terms and has not negotiated anything beyond them. How the reader works, and what it is never allowed to report, is described on the Privacy page.

What you write is your responsibility. Do not write anything you do not have the right to share, and nothing that breaks the rules above.

What Rhythm owns

The name, the mark, the site, the questions, and the way matching works. You may not copy, scrape, or resell them.

Other services Rhythm depends on

Rhythm uses Google for sign-in, your mobile carrier to deliver texts, and an AI model provider to read answers. Those services have their own terms, Rhythm does not control them, and it cannot promise they will always be up.

Leaving, and being asked to leave

By you. You can stop at any time. Skipping a day costs nothing, replying STOP ends texts, and you can leave altogether. The button to delete your account and its contents is on your Settings page, under “Leaving Rhythm”; it waits seven days before it happens, and you can call it off during those seven days from the same page. The button to export everything Rhythm holds about you is meant to live inside the product; until it does, write to [email protected] and it will be done by hand.

By Rhythm. Rhythm can suspend or remove an account that breaks these terms, that harms or frightens another person, or that belongs to someone under 18. Rhythm can also close the service itself — it is one person’s project — and will try to tell you before that happens.

What happens to your data. When an account is deleted, for either reason, your answers, the numbers and the description read from them, any fragments of your words that were traded with a friend and any of theirs that were traded with you, every question you were asked together with another person and both answers to it, your profile picture, and your connections are deleted with it. A mobile number you chose to send to another person cannot be recalled: deleting your account removes it from Rhythm and does not remove it from the person you gave it to. Two kinds of record survive: the bare fact that a mobile number asked for texts to stop, kept so a STOP can be proven honored, and a report filed by or about you, kept so a pattern of harm cannot be erased by leaving and coming back. A kept report holds a one-way hash of your email address in place of your account, which is what makes coming back recognisable; the address itself cannot be recovered from it. Nothing else is kept. Privacy sets all of this out in full.

No promises

Rhythm is free, and it is one person’s work. It is provided as it is and as it is available, without any warranty at all — not that it will be up, not that it will be right, not that any curve means what you hope it means, and not that anyone you meet is who they say they are. Rhythm does not promise you a match, a friendship, a relationship, or a reply.

Limits on liability

You have paid Rhythm nothing, and that is the honest measure of what it can be held to. To the fullest extent Washington law allows, Rhythm is not liable to you for any loss or harm that comes from using it, from being unable to use it, from something another person on it says or does, or from anything that happens when you meet someone — whether that loss is direct, indirect, or the kind nobody saw coming. If a court decides some liability must exist regardless, it is limited to the amount you paid Rhythm in the year before the claim, which today is zero. Some places do not allow limits like these, and where they do not, they do not apply to you.

Changes

These terms will change as Rhythm does. The date at the top is the date of the current version. If a change matters — if it takes something from you, or asks something new of you — Rhythm will tell you before it takes effect, by email to the address you sign in with or inside the product. Small changes, like fixing a sentence, may be made without notice. Using Rhythm after a change takes effect means you accept it; if you do not, leaving is always open to you.

Where, and what happens if we disagree

Rhythm is operated from Washington state, United States, and these terms are governed by Washington law, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.

If something goes wrong, write to [email protected] first. One person reads that inbox and would rather sort it out than argue about it. If that does not work, any claim between you and Rhythm is brought in the state or federal courts located in Washington, and both of us agree those courts can hear it. Nothing here asks you to give up a right that the law says you cannot give up.

The small print, without the smallness

If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, that part is cut down to what is enforceable, or removed, and the rest stands. If Rhythm does not enforce a term once, that does not mean it has given the term up. These terms are personal to you and cannot be handed to someone else; Rhythm may hand its side to whoever carries the project on, and will tell you if it does. These terms and the Privacy page, together with the Messaging page for anyone who links a number, are the whole agreement between you and Rhythm about using it.