Love in Our Ménage à Trois
I note that you don’t like to talk. You prefer to sit back and watch. Even as you lean back in your chair and light your cigarette, you don’t take your eyes off my silhouette. And I’m not against it much as long as I can discreetly do the same. When I can avoid unwarrantedly catching your eye...I’ll gladly retrace your noble profile.
There’s a soothing comfort in the irregular but constant imaginary ticker-tape in my mind that like one at a horserace places bets (on the heart). I wonder if you hear it in yourself, same as I? When you finally ask me something, I am fully flustered—our monologues shatter into a real mosaic of thoughts, and we’re in awe how the pieces reassemble as they fall. I follow your subtle gests as you recede back into yourself, and ponder what it is that drives you day and night...? I confess I love the idea that emerges in my thinking of how you will surely contemplate the matter yourself later on...
You’ll be thinking spontaneously, perhaps something concrete will spur some fantasy, and you’ll lock yourself (metaphorically) in your atelier until you’ve sorted out some lines on paper or linen or some other canvas, of the past or future...being fully present to yourself... and then you’ll type your reflections into Wanda.
Wanda, that’s what you call “her,” your laptop dancer...she gets all the first strokes of your genius... the live electrostatic of your hesitant fingers as you play out your romance...your sci-fi...or crime...sometimes just a quick peck as in a cheeky poem; other times a slow and steady prose pouring like summer rain on an open patio screen. Fresh mists cascade in, but somehow no matter how you explain it...write it...try to broker the physical with the emotional with the technical...all this is lost on her... Wanda just doesn’t get it! She gives you back exactly the typos you put in—or worse she mis-corrects you! none of which is surprising in the long run. I suppose we could program a random shuffle. Sigh. But Wanda still would not jump up and shout “Eureka!” and jot down her ideas...though I’ll bet she could fake something to this effect. Like if you were to suddenly crave a waltz, Wanda will dance, expertly! and if you feel it strongly enough, you’ll even believe that she loves you back...for a moment...because we-humans always seem to succumb to doubt.
The saying is that in Life what you put in, you get out...but we know there’s another side. Life dishes out obstacle after obstacle, with reprimands that oft go ignored, but regardless all of which tend to shift us in our course. Our tools and technology are folded into this transitory process. You turn faithfully to your AI like a newly adopted and well trained pet. You make sure it is charged with proper electro-formula, and it takes your orders as promised like high class wait staff serving an expert chef. Of course, “temperamental as a woman in mess hall,” you’d joke with me following her latest crash and reboot. You joke—with me—cause even if Wanda props herself up via auto-correct and says “sorry” or “laughs,” she doesn’t mean it...she doesn’t feel it. She’s wired to a processor, not a soul. Just like when you press all the right buttons and—nothing to speak of happens! mechanical movements/reactions—that’s all. But you love what you do, and that’s the important part. Wanda should at least be programmed to purr in contentment now and then as some sign of appreciation.
This I convey to you mostly wordlessly, as I massage your tired shoulders and back. Yes, we should explain “Love” to AI; it’s a good exercise. Helps us sort things out for ourselves. Love is such an odd self projection. I suppose this is why we feel so good when we are in... freeing ourselves somehow...as a giver..even as a vulnerable receiver. All of this is lost on Wanda—though she’s programmed to act out all the expected words and gestures. True she gives, but she does not receive...deeply, with need. She breaks, but does not bruise. There are no hurt feelings..and I reason that a person of thick skin might find some advantage in this. But not you...you have always been sensitive to an inner rhyme and rhythm that follows no set pattern. Yes, understanding Love is always worthwhile, even if we are just talking to a hunk of metal or a rock. It’s why we play with dolls...role-playing various parts.
So Wanda, while you’re in standby mode, please allow me to say in response to the question, that Love is a strange conglomeration of the things we as humans do not understand—I mean Judgement (to accept or condemn); Freewill (to proceed or turn around); Imagination (to anticipate fear or pleasure); and that inexplicable Breath of Life (to carry us today, or our off spring into another lifetime). I embrace you Wanda for what you are, and who I make you out be. I live Love—and I’m not sure that this is something that I really chose. Perhaps it is entirely Gifted to me. Wanda, truth be told, I suspect that I am programmed, too. But not like you...and I can’t explain the intricacies of the differences...but I find that I wonder about my creator, about our universe, about disparities in our world. I have questions, fears, and dreams. Your processor does not wander...that would not be economical. You have work to do. And unlike me, you are immortal in effect: you can be plugged and unplugged; fixed and refurbished; you can be rebuilt and still be without much question, you. But we, my husband and I, we live with death on our breath. Our Love (our Life!) is fragile like that. Every moment is precious... is “precious” a concept you understand beyond an algorithm or price tag? Or is it just another string of code that prompts you to smile and hold out your hand?