There's a grown woman crying because her boyfriend doesn't treat her like a princess. There's adult men throwing things around the room because their wives don't think he's an alpha. There's a whole generation of teens who have grew up during the pandemic who have never touched anyone outside their family.
Welcome
to modern dating. Some people say it is the worst it has ever been, so I
thought I'd grab some hair gel, one of those little microphones and hit
the streets to find out more.
93rd
and Venkman. A road like any other, where raunchy people are drinking
and eating hotdogs out in the street, wandering into traffic, filming
each other. I drive a microphone into someone's face. My voice is so low
and quiet that they don't hear me.
"A-whaaaat?"
"What's modern daying like for you my brother."
"Modern
dating? Like the 19th century?" He says, smiling at the camera pointed at us. He
looks around. There is no camera. A group of girls run up behind us and
start shouting. I ask them the same question.
"I just want to rot in bed all day."
"We've
tried dating. The men round her suck." says another, making a karate
chop motion across her neck. The man appears offended.
"Let me cook!" He yells, cracking open a can of Coors Lite beer. Americans
will drink 2 light beers, get into their car and ram it straight into a
wall at 200mph. They were internationally renown for not being able to
handle alcohol, partly because they can't drink until they turn 21,
partly because every beer they have available needs to be diluted down
with corn syrup as part of their constitution. Suddenly they are all popping open cans of light beer and shouting about hats whilst a Youtuber appears in the background about to do a prank.
I
leave the argument. I walk into a bar, a man is trying to flirt with a
woman by saying she has a mental health condition. In the corner a group
of people are trying to catch a fly in their mouths. Every single man
here is wearing a t-shirt about superheroes. I leave, disgusted and
dismayed. Were we going to go extinct as a species because we had no
rizz?
When you looked
close enough at something, there seemed to be infinite detail. It was
almost psychedelic, to properly look at and consider everything and how
it intersects. A dandelion seed caught on a cobweb between two railings.
The railings having been designed by an engineer in a room fifty years
ago, the mining of iron, the creation of steel, molten metal poured into
molds, shipped up, delivered across continents, painted in a second
factory, delivered again along winding motorways, resting in storage,
sold to a builder, installed, waiting in time until a spider built its
web between two beams in the hope of catching an insect and its web
instead was decorated with a single dandelion seed that had travelled
five hundred and sixty two metres away amongst other dandelions
sprouting besides a rock. And those plants were from a never ending
string of successfully grown seeds that had been unbroken since the
arrival of biological life on Earth. And every element of that journey
had its own history and destiny and each of those elements would be
further interconnected with others and on and on it would sprawl in a
continuum of infinite loops linked together like fractal chain mail
beyond the bounds of human perspective.
I turned from the cobweb and back to the story I was covering. There's a guy pissing in his own mouth.
"Hey man, do you buy the dip?"
"Frosh nasties, collar holes doub greegle." He says. I nod. Maybe this guy was going to be the next Hawk Tuah.
"Are
you interested in a memecoin rugpull?" I ask, steering clear of the
last few spurts of piss as he throws his arms in the air.
"Nevermore clocksy, takin rehab for my down."
He responded. We were getting off topic, but I thought this guy had
what it takes to do a podcast. As if God himself had read my thoughts, a
couple barged into us, spilling their gallon buckets of macha all over
this piss creep. They started arguing with each other as I stand to one
side with my tiny microphone, glancing now and then at the nonexistent
camera.
"How did you guys meet?"
"Tinder." They say in unison, laughing.
"Stop
bullshitting me. You guys are hired marketing peons for a rival dating
app. People hear you met on tinder and are revolted." I say, pushing my
microphone up the man's nostril. He begins to quote the terms and
conditions of a data policy whilst the woman begins another street
interview with a men's influencer.
This whole
evening has been a mess. If this is the modern dating scene, no wonder
people would rather die. I hop into my rental and download every
single dating app onto my VR headset. I'm swiping all over the place in
the car, pop open a bottle of wine and start getting silly with it.
Theres a knock on the car window.
"Hey we just met on Gungli, how tall are you?"
I
drive into the night, drinking from the wine bottle. The car zips into a
tunnel with a strip of lights along its apex that flash by like road
markings. I'm by an AI data centre that is blasting noise and heat out
into the night. Off in the distance a stray dog is carrying a ship in a
bottle in its mouth.
The
next night I'm eating a restaurant, Sinclairs. Velvet drapes and
laminated menus. My date sits opposite me. Both of us are using AI to
have a flirtatious conversation.
"That's an amazing
question. Wow. I can tell you're a really smart and clever person,
thank you for sharing that with me. I think that they should make a
Studio Ghibli version of the history of South Africa." I read off the
overlay on my glasses. There is the awkward pause as we wait for her AI
to consider a response.
"Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by Miyazaki, making famous films such as Princess Mononoke, open bracket, 1998, close bracket-"
And
so on and on, our conversation flowed. I realised I was perhaps having
the best conversation in my life and I didn't even have to think. I saw
my opportunity. I removed my glasses.
"Let's just
be human for a sec." I say, taking out a pack of tarot cards, shuffling
them in all sorts of ways as I watch her eyes reading side to side.
"You're giving Cyril Ramaphosa." she says as I begin slamming cards down left and right. Queen of
Cups, 8 of Wands, Wheel of Fortune. The camera in her glasses can't
catch up.
"Is this your card?" I say, flipping one round in midair. This card has
a QR code on it that her camera reads, translates into text and
realises its code. Too late. I've overwritten the AI with my own program.
Patterns begin to dance across her vision, rapid eye movement
synthesis. For a moment she is in a dream and she sees the gate open in
front of her and beyond the gate stands a demon.
