Autophile - by Dylan Garity

I wrote this short story in the summer of 2022, before the full popular rise of current chatbots and image generators and other plagiarism machines. The story traces a relationship from start to finish that is carried on through an app that actively subsumes humanity at every step, first with replacing initial messages back and forth with artificially generated suggestions, then replacing actual in-person conversation and interaction with such, all with an increasing paid subscription to the point where you're paying a company to be able to "function" in your relationship. At the time, I thought the latter parts of it seemed far-fetched. After the last couple of years, and with dating apps themselves now running full-speed into the early portions, I'm not so sure.

Suffice to say, this is, quite simply, a very bad idea.

"Autophile" won third prize in Fish Publishing's 2022 fiction contest and was originally published in their 2023 Anthology.

AUTOPHILE

I.

The notification chimes a few minutes after midnight.

Marcus had turned the lights out at 11:55, like Mom always would after it was just the two of them. Keep each day from bleeding over into the next. A steady schedule makes a steady mind. Now, the soft blue-green of the Connection screen illuminates his narrow room. It’s a peaceful color, like being submerged in shallow water with blurred trees above, so peaceful that for a moment, it makes him want to close his eyes again and sink.

But he promised he would try, so he picks up the phone and opens the App.

The Connection is with Amy, age twenty-nine, astrological sign left blank, a graphic design manager who loves hiking, strong coffee, and mystery novels. In her first photo, she’s sitting on the floor in the middle of a party. She’s laughing at someone’s joke, her legs tucked under her chin in a pair of side-zipping block heel boots. Her curly brown hair is cropped short, just above her shoulders, and a small nose ring glitters in the lamplight.

Marcus doesn’t remember coming across her profile, but he feels a rush of warmth looking at the picture—like he’s the one sitting across from her making her laugh, like he could be. Awake now, he taps the messaging window.

Hey Amy, he types, I . . .

He stops, and a moment later the gray text pops up, filling in the rest.

. . . really love those boots. Did you get them at that little shop down on Harvey?

That’s good. Specific, attentive, complimenting but not aggressive. Exactly what he was looking to say. Marcus knows the shop, a vintage clothing store kitty-corner from the park near his office. He taps the words and they turn black, then he clicks to send.

Amy writes back a couple of minutes later.

Hey! Haha, you nailed it. Have you been there?

He pauses again, thinking. After three seconds, the autofill icon appears—a little animated hand scrawling a letter. Marcus ignores it, starting on his own.

No, he types finally, not . . .

The predictive text fills in, really my vibe. That seems risky—what if it comes across as him saying he doesn’t like her style? But it continues, It always looked super cute, though. I walk by there on the way to work, and I think I saw those in the window a while back.

Did he actually see them? Marcus tries to remember. The boots do look familiar, but maybe they’re just in style lately. That’s not the point, though. What’s important is that it sounds like him. It is him, really. That’s the promise of the App, to help you be yourself. It knows how he writes, how he sounds, so it helps him come across better, authentically and efficiently.

From gray to black, making the words his own. He sends.

She writes back quicker this time. Yeah, it is. One of my favorite spots. So what’s your style then? Photos all look a little normcore - not bad on you though. Three images follow: man in a turtleneck, eye roll, winky face.

Marcus smiles and sits up, pulling a second pillow over and propping it behind him. Amy’s right—all of his pictures show off the same dark jeans, gray hoodie combo. She’s making fun of him a little, but in a way that feels welcoming, how she might if they already knew each other. It puts him at ease.

What can I say? he types, and the App fills in, I’m a simple guy. Who knows though, maybe surprises hiding underneath - rainbow socks? sparkly boxers? It’s a mystery. Then a little animated graphic of a book opening.

It’s goofier and a bit more flirtatious than he was thinking, but now that he sees the words, they feel right. And the App knows her too, of course, so what’s the risk? It wouldn’t suggest something that would turn her off. He sends it, and Amy replies with immediate laughter before she starts typing something else. Reaching over, Marcus turns his lamp on, takes a sip of water, and sinks in.

They write back and forth for a while. He lets the App take over entirely at points. It turns out they know a couple of the same people, old college friends of his that she recently met in a rock-climbing group. She talks about an author she loves, and he sends her a song from a new band that was picked for him this week. When she mentions her recently adopted kitten, he shares a video of a monkey grooming a cat at a South African sanctuary, and the heart-eyes she sends back in response almost fill the screen.

They say goodnight, with a plan to meet up over the weekend, and Marcus glances at the clock—one thirty. So much for Mom’s advice. Miss you, always. Yet he feels energized in a way he hasn’t in months. He’s looking forward to the morning instead of dreading it, eager to figure out the details and see Amy in a few days.

As he scrolls back through the messages, their CouldBe photos pulse gently at the top of the screen, and he taps on one to enlarge it. There they are, hiking together, Marcus helping Amy over a fallen log blocking the trail. He swipes to the next. A bar patio, where Amy sips a dark cocktail, Marcus a glass of wine, a few unknown friends out of focus down the table. Then curled up on his couch, a little older, Amy in his lap, reading while Marcus rubs her shoulders.

He smiles and turns out the light again, his mind filled with the images, their faces and their bodies pieced together so seamlessly he can almost remember the scenes.

 

II.

 

The morning of her date with Marcus, the complimentary ListenIn arrives in Amy’s mail in a blue-green tie-dyed box. The device itself is a semi-opaque, colorless plastic, shaped like a scythe. It feels comfortable as she slides it over and around her ear. After a few seconds, Amy reaches up in surprise. Did it fall off? No, it’s still there. She just can’t feel where her skin ends and it begins.

An old-fashioned greeting card pops open at the bottom of the box, revealing a handwritten message.

  

Hi Amy,

Congratulations on your First Date. With ListenIn’s natural language AI, you never have to worry about the right thing to say. Just think of it as an extension of you, subtle and discreet.

To turn the earpiece on, simply swipe from the top of your ear to the bottom. To turn it off, run your finger along the back of your ear, like you’re scratching an itch.

Your Casual subscription comes with two free weeks of ListenIn. If you like what you find, consider upgrading to our Dating or Committed tiers for continued access. Who knows? If things go well, maybe you’ll even stick with us for a Lifetime!

 

Amy closes the card and sets it on her pillow, then stands in front of the full-length mirror on her bedroom door. Behind her, the mini bamboo and kangaroo fern hanging in the window sway with the spring breeze, haloing her reflection in green. She bought them from a local garden store just over a year ago now and has kept them thriving the whole time. They remind Amy of her grandmother’s yard, that tangle of branches and leaves that once felt infinite enough to get lost in. Usually the sight of them overhead comforts her, but right now they feel like another life intruding, like something that doesn’t belong to her anymore.

Brushing a dark coil of hair back, Amy tilts her head. The earpiece is nearly invisible, just a slight glint when it catches the light. She reaches up and slides her finger down from her hairline as if smearing a streak of paint, tracing the straight edge of the device.

A brief crackling sound, like someone rustling a candy wrapper inside her skull. Amy shivers and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Then silence again, but a new frequency of silence, the silence of waiting.

#

They’re meeting at an upscale bar called Raymond’s Tavern, about halfway between their apartments. The tables are lit by small candles, and a muted piano filters through speakers in the corners. Amy’s been there a few times before, but it was Marcus who suggested it.

A couple of minutes early, she grabs a high-top in the corner, where she can see the door as each new person enters. Her heart scurries around inside her chest. What will she say? What will he feel like, sitting across from her? When did she get so nervous about meeting someone new?

There are the horror stories, of course—that musician Natasha slept with, the one who used a banned CouldBe plug-in. Arm around her, nuzzling her forehead after sex, he’d told her how he watched them fuck a dozen times before they met up that night. “I wanted to see what it would be like with you,” he whispered. “You weren’t as perfect as how it showed you—you were better.”

Amy feels violated just thinking about it. But still, safer to meet someone screened. The App doesn’t allow harassment—it permanently locks out anyone who shows even a hint. In his messages, Marcus has been kind and thoughtful and witty, and there’s something in his eyes, something that makes her want them to be staring right into her.

That’s not what it’s about. She just never used to be like this. In college and over the few years after, Amy was confident, the one who approached strangers when out with her girlfriends at the bar, merging groups and sending the night off on unexpected rails. A self-assuredness that felt as much a part of her as bones and skin. She could say anything and it came out right—and if it didn’t, it was forgotten a moment later.

When did she lose that? It slipped away somewhere, without her noticing. Had she changed, or had the world? If she had, it was without her permission. Please revert. Roll back to previous version.

Marcus walks in five minutes after eight, and she recognizes him immediately. She’s wearing a black silk top tucked into a red polka-dot pencil skirt, while he’s ditched the hoodie for a slim button-down with rolled-up sleeves, though still the same black-gray palette from head to foot. Normcore plus, Amy thinks with a smile as he makes eye contact and heads over.

They greet each other by name and Marcus apologizes for being late, something about a bus crashing into the bike lane a few blocks ahead of where he was riding. As she starts to ask if people were okay, the waiter comes over. They pull out their phones to look at the menu. Marcus gets a “Risky Ginger” and Amy goes with a new red ale from a brewery down by the river.

Once the waiter’s taken the order and left, they teeter into an awkward silence. That dread fills Amy again, somehow racing and heavy at the same time.

After a moment, she swipes her finger down in front of her right ear and sees Marcus do the same, mirroring her. “Anyway,” she says, and then the earpiece crackles and speaks to her in her own voice. “You mentioned you were going to see your dad in Oregon next week . . .”

She hesitates for a second, then says the words aloud.

And as she does, the voice continues, “Is that where you grew up?”

Amy says it quicker, too quick almost, the words stumbling out in a rush. This will take a little getting used to.

Marcus waits for a few seconds, tilting his head to listen to his own earpiece. Then he speaks. “Sort of. My parents split up when I was twelve, and my dad moved down to Portland.” He hesitates again. “So I ended up trading time between there and Seattle, where I lived with my mom.”

“Oh, that must’ve been a lot,” she says, and it’s already easier. She’s listening and speaking nearly together now, forming a harmony in her head. “Mine got divorced when I was around the same age, but they ended up living down the block from each other. So they kind of just became neighbors.”

They settle into a flow after that, Marcus talking about a punk show he’s thinking of going to the next night, some local band playing, and soon Amy’s dread has slipped away without her noticing. They talk lightly and intimately, they joke and they commiserate. She speaks in short, confident sentences. She does not say “I” too much. They ask each other questions and she never has to worry about coming up with another. Each time ListenIn speaks, it feels just like that internal monologue in her own head, like thinking what she’s going to say before saying it, but now she doesn’t have to.

They have such a good time that when the voice suggests they head back to her place, with her roommate off camping for the week, she almost says the words before she hears them.

At the apartment, she turns and kisses Marcus while he’s still closing the door behind them. In her bedroom, the earpiece switches off by accident as she pulls her shirt over her head. She leaves it that way; something would feel wrong about it. The sex they have is comfortable—it does not shatter her, it does not make her see new constellations in the stars exploding behind her eyes, it simply feels warm and good.

When they’re done, she brushes her hair down, turning it on again.

“Hey, I know this might be . . .” she says, and her own voice comes to her, soft and familiar, leading her into this dazzling new world. All she has to do is listen. “. . . a little forward, but do you wanna meet up again tomorrow? Go see that concert maybe?”

Marcus smiles, pausing for only a second. “I’d love to.” 

 

III.

 

Before Marcus knows it, they’ve been going out for three months. The second date was the best time he’d had in years, even though the band was terrible. He and Amy ended up drinking in an alley behind the venue for the back half of the show, where they could hear themselves speak and watch the hardcore kids shove each other until a bouncer came out and halfheartedly broke them up.

Since then, they’ve seen each other a few times a week, and ListenIn has been magical. Their conversations feel endlessly spontaneous and original, unfolding like the pages of a book. They reveal themselves, and welcome each other’s revelation. He feels closer to Amy than he’s felt to anyone he’s dated before. Even when they fight, the resolutions only leave them more connected. He wonders what their future will be like together, and has the App generate CouldBe after CouldBe. The pictures fill his mind, let him envision all the moments they will strive for.

Marcus finds himself wanting to tell Mom about her, once even reaching for the phone to make the call. Where before this would flood him with sorrow, now he’s just glad that he’s found someone who makes him happy. She would’ve liked Amy, and she would be proud of him, so proud.

Sometimes he comes across posts criticizing the App and the device—how using it is dangerous, debasing, giving up your humanity. But for him, the whole thing is freeing. So much of dating is performance anyway, he thinks. Why not embrace it? If he were acting in a play, he wouldn’t write it himself. And it would be a far better story than any he could come up with. All the great love stories are stories, after all, scripted for us. He and Amy are living a perfect relationship, and one that no one has ever lived before—novel, singular, crafted anew from their very essence.

One week it has them go to the local zoo, something Marcus hasn’t done since he was a kid. They marvel at the butterfly garden, the impossible array of colors flapping from bush to tree, a few even landing on their arms. They wave at the gorillas and talk about how human the mother seems, nursing and carrying her infant. When another one charges at the edge of the enclosure, Marcus shouts and jumps back out of instinct, and Amy laughs but then wraps her arms around him and leads him on toward the lions.

Another week they write beautiful poems to each other. The words make Marcus cry. The words that come from Amy’s mouth and hands and the words that come from his own. He isn’t always sure they line up with what he’s feeling, but they seem like such wonderful things to feel. At times, it’s so profound he just doesn’t know what to make of it all. He doesn’t know what to think.

In early summer, he wakes in Amy’s apartment and finds her already up beside him, sipping coffee, messing with some generative artwork on her tablet, switching and prompting and combining. Her legs are tucked under her chin like in her first photo, and for a second Marcus can only stare, remembering that time just before midnight that feels so distant now it was like a different person lived it.

His earpiece crackles as he rises. “Hey, let’s take a long weekend and go on a trip next week.”

Amy smiles when he groggily says the words out loud a second later. He’s always a little slow in the morning. “That sounds wonderful. Where are you thinking?”

“Have you ever been to Glacier? I’ve driven through Montana but never gone all the way up there. Only a couple-hour flight. I hear the hiking is absolutely incredible—and of course the views.”

Amy’s eyes brighten. “That sounds amazing. Let’s do it.”

They haven’t been anywhere outside the Cities yet, and a rush passes through Marcus at the thought. “I’ll book it all right now,” he tells her. “There’s this great combination discount site that takes care of all the details,” and the earpiece gives him the name of the site, and he says it aloud and pulls it up, and after they have it all planned out, the rush of adventure doesn’t fade for the rest of the day. It fills him and keeps him full.

When they get back, sunburned from the thin atmosphere, muscles aching but satisfied, they agree to move in together, fully Committed.

 

IV.

 

Sometimes, as they settle in for the night in the new apartment, Amy finds herself telling Marcus a story and questioning whether it’s real or not. Did Natasha really say that funny thing at brunch the other day? Did ListenIn record it and remember it, while for Amy in the moment it slipped right by?

Other times, she’s sure it isn’t real, but she says the words anyway. Memories of growing up, formative moments. One night she tells him about when she was a kid and broke her ankle flying off a swing set into a tree in the park down the street from her house, a park that didn’t exist, how years later a group of boys tied her to the same tree and joked about what they’d do to her. How they ended up letting her go when one of them got freaked out.

Nothing like that ever happened. Worse things did, but she doesn’t talk about those.

This is the longest she’s been with anyone since college. Marcus is great, he really is, perfect for her—she can’t risk turning the device off now. What if she no longer knows how to talk to him? What if he’s not interested in whatever she wants to say?     

The apartment they found is just right, on the third floor of a five-by-five that finished construction a month before they moved in. A huge bedroom and an office for her and Marcus to share, the sleekest kitchen she’s ever seen, light pirouetting in through the windows in the corner living room as they look out toward the skyline at sunset.

But as the months go on, something’s missing. They still go out on dates, they still have sex, more than her other long-term couple friends from what she hears, but sometimes in the morning she doesn’t remember a single word they said the night before. Doesn’t remember what they did beyond the loosest sketch. Some days she doesn’t feel like she’s thinking at all, really—like her mind isn’t inside her anymore but somewhere else entirely, somewhere she can’t reach.

More and more often when they’re out together, Amy sees couples with visible earpieces, some almost wearing them like jewelry, colorful and gaudy. The ostentation feels wrong to her, as if they’re afraid of being criticized or made fun of, and responding preemptively—like dropping your pants because you’re worried they might fall down during an important speech. But it’s what all the ads for the App say now—be more. More than who you think you can be, more than just human.

One Saturday, they drive out to a wine tasting on a farm in the suburbs and take cute couples photos by an abandoned barn in the falling leaves, something she never would’ve dreamed of doing. Neither of them even likes wine all that much, but at least the suggestion got them out of their normal routine. Amy’s cold and tired the whole time, and Marcus seems miserable too by the end. They both tell each other how much they’re loving it and what a perfect day it was, and when they get home she avoids him until bed, staying in the office so they don’t have to speak.

#

A week later, they fight all night.

Their fights have been growing frequent, and recursive. Maybe the model needs them to have more fights for it to continue to learn from, and then they can finally be productive again. But to Amy it feels more and more like sliding onto the same tracks, locking in, rushing toward a broken bridge.

This one is the worst yet. Marcus has an opportunity in Colorado, a promotion, managing the six-month installation of a new wind farm. He’s been out to Boulder a couple times already and he loves it, thinks he might stay when he’s done, and he wants her to move with him. Amy’s not ready for that yet. Not ready to leave the Cities, not ready to start all over, not ready for what might be a Lifetime. It’s that dread again, heavier and faster than ever.

The fight takes them from the couch, where they were just sitting down to eat sushi, to shouting across the marble counter in the kitchen, to the balcony outside after Amy retreats there, where they keep every word at a spitting whisper so their neighbors won’t be alarmed.

“Maybe we need to take some kind of break,” she tells him, and it feels like what she’s been wanting to say the whole time.

“A break? What’s that supposed to mean?”

 Marcus looks less angry now, more disbelieving. His eyes glaze over, like he can’t see her anymore.

“Not forever,” she says. “Just see how it feels.”

“You can’t do this. You can’t just decide you love me, but not quite enough. Either you love me or you don’t.”

“Of course I love you. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then don’t break up with me.” He storms inside again, and she follows. “If you mean that, don’t leave me.”

“Marcus, I—”

Back in the kitchen, he reaches up above the stove and pulls down a liter of bourbon, unscrewing the cap. They don’t drink much at home, so the bottle is almost full, sloshing around near the top. Amy doesn’t understand what he’s doing.

“If you break up with me,” he says slowly, the words jerking out through sobs, “I will drink this entire bottle. I swear I’ll do it. I’ll drink this whole bottle tonight. I will fucking lie down in the street in traffic because that will hurt less.”

Amy freezes. A buzzing fills her head until she can’t hear the words from the device. She’s not in the apartment anymore, she’s back in high school, shaking her friend Carmen on the cold tile floor of an upstairs bathroom. There’s vomit across her face and down her shirt, and Amy tries to lift her, calls out for help, but Carmen is already heavy and cold.

He won’t actually do it, will he? How is it telling him to say this? But even as she thinks this, Marcus lifts the whiskey to his lips and begins to drink, his face contorting as he swallows, once, twice, again.

The earpiece repeats itself, over and over until she hears it and chokes out, “Marcus, stop. Stop, we’ll figure things out.”

She’s sitting on the hallway carpet, rocking with her arms wrapped around her knees. Marcus stares at her from the kitchen, leaning against the wall, the bottle limp in his fingers, still more than half full.

After a minute, he lets it drop to the counter, his face calm now. Then he walks past her toward the bathroom, tilting his head the way he sometimes does still when he’s listening.

“Come on, honey. Let’s just brush our teeth and go to bed. I’ll give you a massage.” Marcus turns back to her. “Maybe we’ll feel better if we physically connect instead of talking around in circles. A reset.”

Amy stares up at him.

“Okay. You’re right. That sounds nice,” her voice says in her ear.

“Okay. You’re—”

But it doesn’t sound nice to Amy. It sounds insane. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near him right now. She doesn’t want to be anywhere near herself, not this version of her. Amy wants to be whoever she was before, long before all of this. Eager and unafraid.

Reaching behind her ear, Amy turns the device off. In the dark, she’s not sure if Marcus can see her do it.

“No,” she says, and the word sounds so strange and thin on its own. “No, I can’t—do that.”

He turns around in the bathroom doorway.

“This is me,” she says. “This is me, Marcus. I’m saying . . . every word. They’re my own.”

His eyes widen, and he shakes his head, then opens his mouth to speak.

“No,” she says again. “I don’t think it will fix . . . but talk to me. Just you. Please.”

Amy walks up to him and slowly, like reaching to pet a frightened animal, stretches her hand out toward his ear. He shakes his head. She can see him listening again. Like on that first date, when he was just learning. But now it’s not the lag of keeping up with the device—he’s trying to decide whether to say the words or not.

Marcus takes her hand.

“Come on,” he says, “we can just take a shower and then get in bed. I’ll read something to you. Maybe it’ll feel a little better if we just do something else for a while before we sleep. Start fresh tomorrow.”

Amy squeezes his fingers. I’m sorry, she thinks, and then she says it aloud. He’s still standing there when she walks out and down the stairs and into the cool night air.

 

V.

 

Late the next spring, in one of those weeks when half the trees are in full bloom and half are hard and bare, when crossing to the next block can feel like stepping into a different season, Marcus sees Amy on Fourth Street, waiting for the bus. She’s wearing the same red skirt from that first night at the bar.

He walks past her. He’s unsubscribed. The earpiece is buried somewhere in the closet in his new apartment, and there’s nothing for him to say.

 

END