LoveAI

“The programming of this dating AI app will finally bring some fucking peace to this company,” the CEO proudly declared — the head of the company I’d been working for the past couple of years.

A wave of laughter breaks out, and I instinctively clap along with everyone else, who are all beaming with pride.

The rising workload, youth isolation, and the advent of AI had gradually led to people becoming alienated: no one fell in love anymore, no one fucked anymore, no one had kids. Nothing wrong with that — everyone had their needs met in one way or another — but certain human conditions and frustrations were slowly and inevitably spilling over into the workplace.

Professionalism was leaving the way for hormonal irritability, and nothing made sense anymore: the bosses were ruthless because they were clearly unsatisfied, and employees were drowning in stress, bottling everything up with no friends or partner to vent to.

Team dinners were either endlessly postponed or done over video calls. Restaurants had become expensive and almost exclusivelycouple-friendly: if you showed up alone, you’d inevitably be banished to the dark corner of the place like a leper.

As for me? I’m fine. The less I hear about women, the better. And I don’t want to get into the usual sob story about my ex breaking my heart — there’s only one truth, and there’s not much to say anyway.

Long story short: three and a half months ago, she realized I wasn’t her type. She told me to my face — nothing strange about that — as she was leaving my apartment after stopping by to “visit.” About two and a half minutes later, my desk neighbor called me: he was moving... and oh yeah! My now ex-since-three-minutes-ago girlfriend was going with him. They were in love and had met at the company Christmas party — the same one where I’d introduced them to each other while holding a beer for myself and my girlfriend, faking some vague enthusiasm for the event.

I sat there stunned the entire morning. Took a week off on sick leave and obsessed over everything like I always do. In the end, therapy definitely helped, but realizing I wasn’t the problem that part wasn’t easy.

The even hardest part was forgiving myself for being so stupid, so blind, such a damn fool not to see any of it. I kept replaying the fantasy of finding out beforehand and throwing it in the traitor’s face. That scene haunted me, sweet and bitter, like a knight who sees his quest for the Holy Grail slip away at the final moment: the satisfaction of knowing everything, of ending the relationship on my own terms, at the perfect moment, revealing it to the unfaithful party — that was stolen from me, and it was never coming back.

A few decades ago, there was this trend going around on that social media platform for teens — videos with the same basic idea:“POV: my favorite animal is me when I found out”.Basically showing off couples where one of the two aware of the infidelity of the other finally confronted the partner with receipts masking them as a gift.

Oh, I used to laugh my ass off watching those clips. Women catching their boyfriends cheating and getting revenge. It all felt surreal. And I was there thinkingHow could you live with someone — share a bed, share meals — and not notice a damn thing? No way. Impossible.

And yet... look at me now.Shit, the wave of rage that rises in me every time I think about how stupid I was — it’s overwhelming. My therapist told me to count, breathe, stay present, focus on who I am now, all that crap. And I do it — I really do — but sometimes it’s just too much. Sometimes I feel like I could just explode from the anger.

“Of course, this project would have never gotten off the ground without our incredible team. Let me take a moment to thank the carrier of this virus called progress: Leo!”

With this words I was drag out of my emotional spiral. I faked a dumb smile on my face and pretended to be thrilled about this great achievement.

“Thanks, boss. Behind me — literally — are twenty people who worked day and night on this project. And we’re proud to present to you, on a silver platter,LovAI.”

Applause erupts in the conference room. Tommy and Nic whistle and cheer like they’re in a stadium.But that’s our team in a nutshell — a bunch of idiots building stuff for other idiots.

That evening, after the meeting, me and thetres amigos— Tommy, Nic, and the CEO — decided to grab a beer.And I can’t stop thinking about the absurdity of it all: after years, we’re finally going out to celebrate — not over a video call, not by text — but in person. And what were we celebrating? The success of building a dating app between humans and people who didn’t exist: Ai codes.

Life’s weird like that. But hey, if they pay you a boatload of money, you do it and then you go out and celebrate you even pretend to be happy, even for just once in a decade.

“We’ve already hit 34% of the employees — they signed up and updated their profiles in under 12 hours... sounds like a massive win to me!” the CEO shouts, eyes wide as he lifts his beer and looks at each of us in turn.

“Shit, I hope they didn’t do it during work hours!” Nic bursts out laughing, and the CEO follows.

“Would’ve been cool to test it on a competitor’s app, you know, one where real people are actually looking for other real people. Just for the hell of it, at the expense of some desperate chick,” says Tommy — who’s been marinating in pure misogyny ever since his wife left him. Twelve years of marriage down the drain because he refused to shower or take care of his filthy underwear.

Suddenly me, Nic and Tommy looked at each other like he actually broke down a mental wall for all of us: it was not a bad idea, even if it was deeply unethical.

“Right, ’cause you don’t already have enough drama in your everyday life, huh Tom?” said Nic, slapping him on the shoulder and handing him a cold beer.

“Ah, screw that woman.” (He’s never insulted her — deep down he knows he was the asshole.)“But I’m serious. Think about it — imagine all the extra data we could’ve collected. It’s totally different in the field. It’s like when you get your license — they make you drive in safe areas at safe times — then you go out on your own with your shiny new license and bam! You crash into a fucking SUV. Come on, Leo, you can’t tell me that this wouldn’t have been a genius move.”

Tommy’s face turns purple — he was so worked up about the whole thing. No one answers. We just stared at each other. The CEO was too busy checking out the ass of the only waitress left in town to hear a single word Tommy just said.

While looking at how gross he was acting I sighted.

At least he didn’t heard it, better this way.

But the idea was valid and it was defintely worth a try, it could’ve meant a big update for the app, for our career. I smiled at Nic and Tommy, raised my beer toward them.“We already have a plan for version 2.0.”

Tommy and Nic lighten up. They eagerly clinked their bottles against mine. The plan was starting to take shape in my head.

Like a lone wolf straying from the pack while they decided to stay for one last round at the bar, I broke off from the others.On the way home, step by step, I started drafting a code mentally for the new version of the app. 2 a.m. on a Saturday night is fertile ground for anyone searching for something — especially when sleep has completely vanished from the deepest parts of your brain.

And I was definitely searching.

Version 2.0 was meant to evolve — to feel even closer to reality and human emotions. It was supposed to handle even the hardest challenges that real relationships could throw at it.And often — actually, almost always — the answers to those problems weren’t even known by the couple itself. But LovAI 2.0 it would’ve known.

It was a solid plan and Tommy was right: How can you buy a car without test driving it? How can you dream of traveling if you’ve never stepped a foot on a plane?

How the hell did I build this app without ever thinking of testing it in the real world?

That was the real question — the one that brought that primal rage surging back through me.The same rage that bubbled up when I thought about that bitch (yeah, I use the terms — no shame) and that dumbass ex-colleague of mine.

But then I come back to my senses.Hey, nothing’s lost.I breathe.I count.I open my eyes — and I’m in front of my computer.

I’d written a program ages ago which gave me complete and safe access to mobile apps from my PC. I downloaded two of the most popular dating apps and created profiles on both.On the other screen, I started coding.

If movie scenes where hackers are typing away furiously were an actual scene, well, this was the case: not that far away from my reality.Especially when the consequences might bite you in the ass.

Name:LukeAge:31Height:1.82mEyes:GreenBio:“I’m tired of wasting time on pointless small talk. Want to tell me who you are and who you want to become? I’ll listen.”

A super catchy line for his bio— sounds like a man who knows who he is and isn’t afraid to ask deep questions.

The profile was a perfect replica of the Leo template — but of course, no one would’ve known that. “Luke” was one of the most common names of the past fifty years, due to my researches. The age was both appealing to thirty-somethings women, but also for women in their mid-20s.

The project was designed to reach a wide range of the population. The program would analyze every single conversation and extract the data needed to improve the AI’s interaction with its target.

For now on Luke was my only chosen knight as I needed to spy on women’s lives. But soon, maybe we could’ve implement even a female version too. Luke would’ve been my Big Brother eye, my baby cam into real life. He would’ve bear fruit — for better or worse.

Of course, there was a real downside: a very likely ban from the apps I was aiming to extend my research, since I could’ve be flagged as a bot or AI spam. But this wasn’t my first rodeo.

Luke will get matches. He will chat, will meet women, get plenty of dates —dates where he will never show up due to unforeseen issues, but then he’d always find a way to make it up to them.

This time I would’ve pull the string until it snapped. This time, I was sure: I wouldn’t skip over the obvious. This time, I would’ve go deep and even deeper.

This time, I will build the impossible.