I’m going to start by saying that I like progress. Virtual reality is cool. I like the idea of colonizing Mars (if not the dick-faced sociopaths who are always braying about it at social gatherings). I think self-driving cars are probably the future (just not ones that turn you into a crispy fried buffet due to how poorly they are made; you know exactly which fiery death traps I’m referring to right now). I’m a Star Trek person, after all. I like that version of advancement for humanity.
However, there are certain innovations that make me want to go back to unwieldy rotary phones and maps that give you paper cuts and not knowing where anybody is all the time, and this gem is one of them:
By most accounts, we are in a loneliness epidemic. So much so that the feds are talking about it..
I don’t care about what anybody says — it doesn’t matter that other people have “red flags,” it doesn’t matter if some “influencer” tells you for the thousandth time that “dogs are better than people” — human beings need other human beings.
You know what human beings don’t need? A fucking chatbot that encourages them to dwell on someone who rejected them.
I’m not even going to bother bringing science into this, this is common fucking sense: Getting over a breakup involves getting off your ass, going outside, and having new experiences.
Making new memories that categorically do not involve your ex is the only way for you to accept a reality in which they’re no longer a part of your daily life. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts at first. The pain is the point. The pain is growth. It’s an essential element of getting better, kind of like making progress at the gym, even though your muscles shriek in protest.
Let me tell you about Randy. Randy was the best thing to happen to me after one bad breakup. He was VERY different from the ex whose rejection had blindsided me. Randy was tall, young, cheerful, he had friends he played pool with and otherwise enjoyed being social, and he’d been raised by a scrappy single mother, which meant that he understood me better than his casual demeanor suggested. Randy was so different and new, that at first I kept him at an arm’s length. The newness of Randy alarmed me.
But then I realized two important things: My ex wasn’t the one. And the anxiety I felt was the point. It was my old friend, opportunity, throwing rocks at my window late at night, asking me to come out and play.
Taking up with Randy was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself, right up with drinking more water and discovering the poetry of Mary Oliver. It wasn’t some grand love affair set to violin music, that wasn’t the point. It was allowing myself to exist in the orbit of this unfamiliar person, who was fun and kind and made me feel beautiful when he looked at me.
I was a Trekkie about it, I don’t care how cringe this sounds. I boldly went. I challenged myself. I emerged happier and stronger and with higher standards.
Imagine if I had locked myself in with a chatbot that replayed my ex-boyfriend’s trademark sayings/furious soliloquies instead. Imagine if I had created a digital copy of someone who had hurt me — whether on purpose or otherwise, it doesn’t even matter — and let it cook my brain.
Notice that this “Talk To Your Ex” bullshit is being marketed to men. That’s because the developers already know that heterosexual men have a harder time meeting people. They have a harder time finding their own Randys. And the developers have laid out a trap for these people.
Progress and healing are often reduced to stupid buzzwords in our culture, but they still hold meaning for the non-sociopaths among us. Call me an old, angry bitch who wants to be a buzzkill about groundbreaking AI tools — I’m an old, angry bitch who knows things. I didn’t get this old and bitchy without observing human beings. And one thing I definitely know is that a neat little bandaid solution for a complex problem such as a trampled human heart is a shitty idea.
So if any of your friends sign up for this crap — let them know that they owe it to themselves to put that shit away and go outside. They should take a trip instead. Get a pet. Take their ass to trivia night.
Send them this little rant of mine, if you think it might be helpful.
And as always, thank you for reading, and for being here. You, yes, you, are the actual best ❤️