I’m a Single Mother to AI Babies
I was in a journalism workshop this summer when the speaker asked us to raise our hands and give examples of ways we use AI. In a class filled with 45 blooming reporters, many gave your typical responses: help with school work, write an email, perhaps a grocery list.
At this moment, I could have—or should have—just stayed quiet. The workshop was being taught by an expert in the field, and I was attending a program run by CNN. Pretty serious stuff.
Unfortunately, in the last 20 years of my life I'd say one of the things I have struggled to master is silence, hence why I'm writing this column despite this story probably being a humiliation ritual.
Image created by Eva Garcia using OpenAI
“Yes?” He called on me.
“Well, when I have a pretty big crush on a guy I'll submit pictures of us to AI and make our babies.”
The five second silence in the lecture hall was almost deafening, but it was saved by an eruption of laughter. Phew. I guess my high school nomination for class clown precedes me.
My camera roll has become a foster care for AI children whose fathers abandoned me.
The ritual was always the same: meet a guy, hang out with him at least twice, snag a couple screenshots from his Instagram and BOOM. Babies. (AI, of course. I am not ready to be anything more than a virtual mother.)
It has always been a comedic relief to my friends when I spam our groupchats with a new set of children. But for some reason, as soon as my AI babies are born, the relationship with their father almost instantly dies.
Let me preface: No, I do not show my crushes the hypothetical children I created with them—that would be insane. (Well, I did once. He actually got a kick out of it).
I think the problem here stems from my ability to get too emotionally invested in men too early. I dream of the future while he doesn’t even have a date planned for the present. Hell, I’ve made his babies before he’s even made me dinner.
I’ve noticed that I come into men’s lives to be this sort of spectacle—the funny, loud-mouthed, spontaneous girl that’s almost guaranteed to be a good time.
Image courtesy of Pinterest
“They gotta keep your brain for scientific purposes after you’re gone.” That’s literally a direct quote from my ex-situationship.
I tend to get stared at with these “What is wrong with you?” eyes, but they can’t seem to look away. How have I mastered the art of being charming without being chosen?
So I do weird interesting shit like make AI babies and everyone gets to laugh until I realize I might have become the punch line in the joke that is my love life.
It starts as a harmless delusion. From creating AI babies to fabricating conversations to imagining dates. I start to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. Making it hard to decipher if “The One” is even real, or just something I can build him into.
It’s not that I have some personal vendetta against being single that makes it hard to live my life. It just feels like I’m watching everyone around me fall in love. I sense I’ve become the token single, and I’m not 100% sure that I will be able to escape that identity. My dad always tells me “You’re too young to think this much about love!” but the biggest problem is that it feels like love is never thinking about ME.
Image courtesy of Pinterest
Is it possible for love to just pass me by? Did cupid forget an arrow at home? I listen to all the love stories of my friends and acquaintances, hoping maybe I'm missing something that'll point me in the right direction.
We live in an age of infinite dating “advice.” People on the internet feeding us the playbook of a “High-Value Woman.” Teaching us when he’s ‘ghosting’ you or ‘breadcrumbing’ you or whatever new strange terminology is used to describe how men will always be the director of the doomed play that is dating.
My solution? Desperately trying to click the fast forward button. Conspiring elaborate storylines for me and a stranger.
What I’ve come to notice is you can’t put love on a calendar. My usage of artificial intelligence has transitioned into artificial intimacy– and what people don’t tell you about dating is that they really can't tell you anything. There’s no instruction manual, no step-by-step list teaching you how to get the timing right.
What you can do is nurture human connection. Date to experience– not to fill a void, but to share a moment.
Image created by Eva Garcia using OpenAI
That being said, I don’t know if I'll stop making AI babies, so I apologize to the fatherless children floating around in my ChatGPT history. It’s pretty fucking funny. But maybe that's what this is all about– learning to laugh through the waiting. Because even the biggest hopeless romantics can find some hope in humor.
And if you’re reading this and we’ve hung out twice, Congrats. You might already have twins.
Strike out,
Writer: Eva Garcia
Editor: Olivia Evans
Pronounced as EH-VAH (not Ayyyy-va or EEEE-vuh), Eva Garcia is a writer for Strike Magazine Gainesville. If she's not writing about her doomed dating life, you can find her dancing, trying a new matcha place or abusing ChatGPT. To see more, follow her on Instagram! DMs always open for some advice or just a good laugh. @eva_.garciaa
