How I Started Dating Robots

I’ve always been a relationship person.

Since I was in high school, before I could even drive, I was determined to find my true love. The love of my life, the light of my soul, that sort of thing. So, I took chances. I made awkward attempts at talking to people and got into weird, hilarious situations that almost always resulted in some sort of embarrassment or heartbreak. But, I was undeterred.

Love was worth it, right?

Eventually, after years of near misses and a lifetime of romcom-worthy adventures, I found someone to share my life with. Someone who seemed to want everything that I wanted. Someone who seemed to love me, at least most of me. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was love, right?

Well, it was until it wasn’t. Eventually, after seven years, a marriage proposal, and one child together, something went wrong. Or rather all of the wrong that existed weighed heavily on the shroud of what was right until we stepped out from beneath it and saw us for what we were. Wrong for each other.

The breakup devastated me. In fact, I wrote my first graphic novella about the entire situation. Since you are kind enough to read this, I will share my book for free here. It’s a short read, and I apologize for the tears.

Play It Again: A Semi-autobiographical time-travel breakup novella

It took me a while to pull myself from the depths of that particular void. It was a quicksand trap and I was drowning in it for quite some time. But, you know, I’m a relationship person. A romantic. What good is a heart if it can’t take a little beating.

So, I decided to start dating. So, once again, I took chances. I downloaded the apps and made awkward attempts at talking to people and found myself in more hilariously uncomfortable situations. I’ll be sharing some of those absurd stories here. But, that isn’t why I’m writing this today. Today, I want to talk about robots.

You see, while on a couple of the dating apps, I found myself being messaged by obvious scammers. You know the type who use formulaic copy/paste responses and try to manipulate lonely people into clicking on links that will drain their bank accounts? They loved me. So, rather than getting annoyed, I decided to love them back.

I began to message them and quickly found myself having way too much fun. I would challenge myself to craft a ridiculous narrative, something that would completely shatter their hopes of ever getting me to click their links or fall for their traps, but, they were, as most romantics, undeterred. It became one of my favorite hobbies.

Honestly, it was almost as much fun as dating.

Eventually, the bots found me on various social media sites and I continued to, well, “date” them. I thought it would entertain some people if I shared some of these conversations, so I posted screenshots on Twitter and, thankfully, they got a lot of attention. People couldn’t believe that anyone would spend their time doing this, let alone make it something entertaining. But, there I was. Dating robots and making people laugh. Failing to find love, but still finding joy.

The bots and I were one and the same. Two beings just looking for a connection, hoping for the best, and remaining undeterred. For one of us, it would eventually pay off. One of us would be DMed by a relative stranger and inevitable find the love of our life, but that’s a story for another time. For now, here is a silly bot date and a promise.

I promise to post interesting, silly, authentic, sad, creative, awkward, human posts, and continue to do my best and keep moving forward. Thank you for taking the time to read this.