Page 44 of The Love Hack

I wasn’t going to feed any of Adam’s readers’ queries to the bot, I decided. There were probably terrible confidentiality implications of doing so, I thought, imagining Adam’s readers discovering that their anguished words had been used to train a bot, suing Max! for plagiarism, and me losing my job and ending up back where I’d been a few weeks before, facing homelessness and penury.

I wouldn’t use their actual words, I decided. I’d do a kind of summary. Just to see how it worked.

At the bottom of my screen was a small, horizontal window. In it, I began typing.

I’m not sure if I’m really into my girlfriend.

Adam’s anonymous correspondent hadn’t actually referred to the woman he was seeing as his girlfriend, but I figured that was acceptable shorthand for someone you’d been on a few dates with and were, to be old-fashioned about it, sleeping with. I mean, come on. She was a girl, and you don’t actually sleep with mere acquaintances, do you? Well, I supposed some people do, if I thought about it.

I like her, but I think she likes me more and I don’t know if it’s fair to carry on seeing her. What should I do?

At the top of the screen, a black cursor blinked a few times. Clearly, the AI was giving my question some hard thought. Then, rapidly, words began to appear below it.

Choosing whether to continue a relationship is always a difficult decision. Your happiness, as well as that of the other person, are at stake here, and decisions shouldn’t be made rashly. Here are some points for you to consider before you reach a conclusion.

So far, so diplomatic. I was impressed – especially when I read on. The bot had come up with no fewer than eight separate steps its correspondent might take in the course of his reflection, from considering what he really wanted in a relationship (‘a deeper connection, or something else’, which I took to be PG-speak for no-strings sex), to turning to friends and family for deeper insight into his situation, to – obviously – having a conversation with the girl herself to try and discover whether their needs and priorities were aligned.

Remember, each relationship is unique, it concluded. Take time to think through your options and you will come to a decision that feels right for you and your girlfriend.

‘Damn,’ I muttered. I was impressed. In less than three seconds, the technology had come up with an answer that – while a bit vanilla, if I was being hyper-critical – was right up there with the best I could have written after agonising over my keyboard for the best part of an hour.

Neil had a point – the thing was going to put us all out of jobs.

I read through the bot’s response again. It was good stuff – it could do with a polish, a bit of shortening and some of Adam’s signature wit adding to it – it had, not unsurprisingly, neglected to warn its user not to be a dick. But this was a good start – I could work with it.

I copied and pasted the text into a fresh document, did the same with the original question, and read it all through again.

Tomorrow, I’d give it a final edit and send it on its way to the subs’ desk, just in case there were any finer points of style that had been missed between me and the bot. But the question was as good as answered.

This thing had potential. I could work with it. My life – or rather, Adam’s life – was about to become a whole lot easier.

SEVENTEEN

Dear Adam

I’ve read a load of stuff online recently (okay, mostly seen it on social media, if I’m honest) about vaginal gummies. Ever come across them? Apparently Gwynneth Paltrow is a fan. But when I suggested to my girlfriend that we might give them a go (because, let’s face it it, girls don’t always taste that great down there), she went absolutely mental at me. She says if I don’t like the way she tastes I can damn well forget about going down on her ever again.

What’s your verdict on this? Surely Ms Paltrow and a million Tiktok influencers can’t be wrong? How can I persuade my girlfriend that this would be a great way to spice (or rather sweeten) up our sex life?

Billy, Cumbria

Dear Billy

Well, where to begin. Your credulous assumption that paid influencers know more about your sex life than your own partner does? The misogyny that absolutely oozes from your letter? Your basic ignorance of the fact that there’s no need for women to go shoving anything up their vaginas unless they actively choose to? The simple truth that fannies should smell and taste of fanny and if they don’t, there’s probably a medical reason why and your girlfriend might want to get checked out by her GP? A suggestion that you a. Pause a moment and make a note in your gratitude journal for the fact that she allows you anywhere near her bits and b. Maybe try shoving a jelly tot down your penis and see how you like it?

No. On balance, Billy, I have just one simple, succinct piece of advice for you: don’t be a dick – of any flavour.

Yours truly, Adam

I stopped typing, my fingers weary from the speed at which I’d bashed out the reply and my heart actually racing, like it did on the frequent occasions when I walked up the stairs to the office rather than risk sharing the lift with Ross. How dare he, I fumed silently. How dare this Billy try and shame his poor girlfriend into experimenting with something she didn’t want to do? How dare he have the utter cheek to suggest that some sugar-laden thrush-bomb was the only way to make her perfectly normal vagina acceptable to his hyper-sensitive man mouth?

‘Jeez,’ I muttered, shaking my head.

‘You all right there, Lucy?’ Marco asked. ‘You’ve gone all red in the face. And Ross isn’t even he?—’

Then he looked at me a bit more closely, and shut up. There must have been something in my eyes that warned him now was not the time to share his observations on either the state of my complexion or the way I sometimes – rarely, hardly ever, these days, since I’d got Amelie’s mate Miranda to give me a crash course in concealer application – reacted to our mutual colleague.

‘You know what, Marco?’ I said. ‘I’ve been doing this job for three months now and men still amaze me.’

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