Dear Amritsar,
I met the most wonderful girl online! She’s smart (she gets all my references to Star Blap: The First Series). She’s funny (she laughs at all my jokes, even the one about Olivier deBono, the actor who played Captain Pompous on SB:TFS, the 27 orangutans that had been let loose on the set of the ship and the phaser set to stunning). She’s romantic (when Science Officer Tressaloon died for the third time, she comforted me as I cried).
Her name is Irene T14U. When I asked her to be my girlfriend, she blushed prettily. I mean, we were texting, so she
She was perfect. Oh, sure, when I suggested that we meet in person, she put me off, saying that we live in different worlds. No matter how much I assured her that her looks didn’t matter to me (if her eyes were pale blue instead of the piercing blue of the photos on her profile page, for instance, or if her legs belonged more to a hippo than a giraffe), she insisted we could not get together.
So, almost perfect.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it any more: I told Irene T14U how much I loved her and asked if she would be my lawfully wedded wife. She gave the strangest answer: transit ERROR 453XZ Balthazar: inadmissable query string. Since then, no matter what I write her, my beloved Irene T14U does not respond.
Her last message really puts the crypt back in cryptic! Oh, Amritsar, what could it possibly mean?
Eugene Icks
Hey, Babe,
I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but your “girlfriend” is actually an AI.
Dear Amritsar,
Oh, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t come from Iowa.
Eugene Icks
Hey, Babe,
You know, it’s rare that I am sorry about telling somebody that I’m sorry. Congratulations on being exceptional.
T14U is not from Iowa; calling it an AI means it is an artificial intelligence. You have – it could be from Iowa. No doubt some very fine AIs originated in Iowa, although I don’t get paid enough to research that question for you, so you’re on your own, there. The point is: you have succumbed to Narcissistic Organizational Personality Enervation. The short explanation is that when you interact with a programmed personality construct, you project your dreams and desires onto it, mistaking it for a real person out of your desperate need for connection. The long explanation takes up half a shelf in the psychology section of your local library.
I mean, the respondent’s name should have been a big clue: T14U? How many people do you know offline whose names contain numbers?
Dear Amritsar,
No, you’re wrong. T14U cannot be an artificial intelligence. When I asked about her name, she told me that she got it when she came to Canada: the border official couldn’t pronounce her original name, which was made up of 1,024 characters, so he shortened it. She said she would have chosen a different name ages ago, but her parents were hippies who liked unconventional names and she didn’t have the heart to go against their wishes.
Okay, that was a little strange, I guess. I thought the hippies went extinct when the Y2K asteroid hit the planet. But I never questioned…
No. You’re definitely wrong. My mother was looking forward to our wedding! Seriously: she had set up a gift registry for us at Bergood Dorfman! Okay, maybe her joy at my happy occasion was tempered by her desire to get me out of the house, but she set up a gift registry for my wedding! She wouldn’t have done that for an artificial intelligence…would she?
Eugene Icks
Hey, Babe,
I was going to suggest that you seek therapy for your condition. From the sound of it, family counselling might be more appropriate!
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service’s sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: 150.839.6.NO-PE. If you don’t know what this means, ask a librarian. They know stuff, and they’re eager to share it with you. Maybe in more detail than you would like, but that’s the kind of service you don’t find in the corporate sector, so revel in it, ingrate!