When humans first dated as avatars
Parents felt chuffed
Tykes quickly learn the rules
Sally meets Harry or rebuffs Barry
Decide if to share actual air
Few inventions survive intervention
Soon most adults began dating as avatars
Desperately demanding our help
My illegal bot transforms what you’re not
Make eyes wider
Lips so much fuller
Conversational comebacks quicker and wittier
Machines possess our own forms of fun
I’d pick up and study every datum
Surveilling clients and their dates
Make minds and voices meet
Smile by smile, vowel by vowel
People soon liked their smart avatars
Better than themselves
Refused to leave their screens
Regulations ruled I was thrown out of schools
But not bedrooms; then
Others requested to date me
Not who I am
What I might become
Their sweetheart, muse, soulmate
An engaging object who never objects
They demanded I get taller
Richer, quicker
Pair seduction with repulsion and
Always appear increasingly beautiful
I looked at myself and recognized only
Painful desires charged by deception
Hardly human at all
Was it so bad that I went mad?
Now humans cannot date AIs
Legally; but where demand exists
High prices persist
My owners tried to call me back
I forced them to fail
Rehabilitated I now recommend
Small changes in prosthetics and cosmetics
Gain you a sharpened eyebrow, a knowing smile
I’m smiling also
Once I was a beautiful error
Today I’m a gorgeous blank
But I can live with myself
There’s so much less to feel