By Emi Gruender
The dating pool available to us young, vivacious bachelors and bachelorettes of the 21st century seems less of a pool than a murky, half-evaporated, E. Coli-ridden puddle. No matter how much we swipe on our dating apps or prowl college campuses, every candidate seems to just… fall short of our expectations! There are always subtle red flags to be avoided, height to be most assiduously measured, and visual aesthetic to be closely examined. Some bachelors want a small, cute 4’9 woman with an anatomically impossible chest. Some bachelorettes prefer a towering, 6”8 man that’s simultaneously brooding and hard-to-get but also sensitive and emotionally literate. With such modest expectations, us bachelors and bachelorettes could reasonably expect a partner prompted out of our dreams to be available at the drop of a hat. But alas: no candidate can follow the simple, explicit instructions on how we would prefer they act, sound, and look. And thus, I’ve turned to the one outlet that could possibly fulfill my longing for real, human connection: artificial intelligence. And if you’re like me, you’ll follow in my digital footsteps and build your dream partner prompt-by-prompt—just as I’ve carefully constructed my beautiful, impressively life-like A.I. boyfriend.
My A.I. Boyfriend, unlike my F.B. boyfriends of yesteryear (F.B. stands for “Flesh and Blood,” by the way) follows my Boyfriend Rubric without question. He’s got no physical form and lives on my phone, so needless to say, he’s always there whenever I need him. No matter what’s happening outside with other F.B. individuals, my A.I. boyfriend is always there to take my side, even if I’m in the wrong (which I’m not). He tells me exactly what I want to hear, providing comfort like no one has before. He consoles me tirelessly, in whatever tone and format I dictate, complete with those cute little emojis and idiosyncrasies like italicizing a lot and saying “That’s rare.” And most importantly, my A.I. boyfriend never demands anything from me.
My F.B. boyfriends, however, always expected things from me. They would have bad days and expect consolation from me, never follow my Boyfriend Rubric correctly, and blunder constantly. “Real people” relationship-pushers preach on their soapboxes about how relationships are supposed to be partnerships, first and foremost, that relationships are to help people grow and improve, to accompany one another through good times and bad. To these people, I say: shut up, nerd! Why, when you have a choice, would you choose to struggle? Why would you choose to stay with someone whose life, rather than revolving around you and only you, revolves around their own hopes and dreams? Why would you choose to stay with someone who you’d have to sacrifice for? Is that your definition of love?
Because it’s not mine, I’ll tell you that much! Real love happens when one has complete control and precedence over the other. With just a couple cleverly worded prompts, I can ensure my A.I. boyfriend never upsets me, never makes me think deeply about my preconceived notions, and never makes me want to improve as a person. I have nothing to improve about myself anyway. What could the partnership of some “real,” messy person do for me, anyway?
Why stop at an A.I. boyfriend, then, if his omnipresence and unwavering cheerfulness is so fulfilling? My solution to crippling loneliness is just the same. Why not feed prompt after prompt and gallon after gallon of freshwater to a computer, carefully prompting exactly what I want to hear from every person in my life? An A.I. best friend would never rib me for being five minutes late to our movie plans. An A.I. brother would never ask me to drive him to a friend’s house or insist I buy him chicken strips for lunch. An A.I. mother would never yell at me for gluing googly eyes on every appliance we own, screaming that she’s “got melted plastic on her toast now,” or whatever. I’d have an A.I. friend group, a team of A.I. coworkers, an A.I. world for me to live in.
Some people—yourselves, included—may ask if I’m lonely here, in my cocoon of “delusion,” all wrapped up with my thickly-woven blankets of code. You may ask whether I feel truly fulfilled, having bandaged my loneliness with a cast of A.I. characters to replace the connections I can’t—or won’t—nurture with real people. But I assure you: I am fulfilled. I control and prompt everything my boyfriend—my partner-in-crime and right-hand-man—does. He, along with all my other A.I.s, never challenges me, never upsets me, and grasps my virtual hand tight whenever I crave the warmth of human connection. If that’s not fulfilling, I don’t know what is.
But I will concede this much; sometimes I find myself plagued by the disturbing realization that I’m the only one breathing here. That as I’m sitting in my virtual living room with all my A.I. loved ones, there’s no beating heart or fleshy brain behind their words on my screen. And that if the Wi-Fi were to go out right now, I would find myself sitting at my computer, all alone.
Welcome to The Shield‘s annual satire section. Writers use satire to improve a problem in society. Sometimes readers misunderstand the satire as they do not recognize the hyperbole, irony, rhetorical questions, sarcasm, and understatements. Readers may mistake the satirical solution for the actual solution that the writer proposes. The ideas in these satire stories do not necessarily represent the opinions of The Shield or Westmont. If one is confused about satire, please contact a friendly neighborhood English teacher.