Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

no cure for cancer

"So, are we talking ­slept with him, or, slept with him?" 

Abby rapped her black fingernails against the Chipotle tabletop in quick, curious succession. Somehow we were at the Chipotle for dinner again. We couldn't afford it, and yet, here we were. As I doused my dinner in jalapeno Tabasco, I wondered if Buzzfeed was not the only corporate entity with an iron grip on our future. We wake, we work, we fill the void with a Buzzfeed-curated meme, and before the sun sets, we trudge to the Chipotle, where we sit beside men our age, and never once ask their names.

"I don't want to get into that," I said and Abby smirked, hard.

Of course she did. At this point, it didn't matter what I said.

"I'm proud of you, kid."

If you are a real android- or if you have been designated the android of your circle- your sex life is a source of fascination. This is true whether you have moderate Asperger's, or whether, save your romantic ineptitude, you blend into polite society with some degree of finesse. If you've made it to twenty-three and never experienced a boob grab, the idea of you even holding hands with another consenting human is shocking. 

It's akin to how, if you had a childhood reputation as an unwilling dancer, people will pay extra attention to your feet at weddings or holiday parties. They'll chide your lukewarm swaying and your nursing a prop beer. Or- worse yet- if you brave a hapless attempt at the Macarena, they'll bug their eyes and congratulate you for "really getting into it."

What was I supposed to say? That we hooked up? That we innocently cuddled? The truth? 

I knew it from the way Abby's eyes widened. She couldn't handle the truth.

"Look, the point is," I said, "I don't think I want to break up with him."

"Yeah?" Abby blinked, "well, he's going to dump you, so you won't have to-"

"No, you misunderstand," I said. "I want him."

"As a soulmate?"

"As an anything," I said.

"Dick game that strong, huh?" Abby pursed her lips and nodded.

"He cares about me," I said. "I really think he cares about me."

"Uh, Lee, oxytocin is a hell of a drug. Fuckboys don't really care about anybody-" Abby clearly meant well, but she was very incorrect.

"He listens to me," I interrupted her. "He asks me what I like, and what I want, and what I consent to. He took me to Eastside's planetarium- he sent me this resume template this morning so I'd get a 'non-shitty job'-"

Abby's expression softened.

"Ok," she said. "So he sounds like a good one, but we know he's still going to dump you in a hot second, so, you really shouldn't catch feels."

I twisted my fork around some lettuce.

"No feels," she repeated.

"Sure," I said.

"You already caught feels, didn't you?" She asked.

I couldn't look up.

"Oh shit, man," her voice cracked low. "That was fast."

"I know," I mumbled, "he got to me."

"Dude this really sucks," she said. "Buzzfeed said he was going to dump you soon, right?"

"I don't know if they actually said when, but," I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence. I aborted mid-clause and glanced at Abby. She at once gazed at my rice bowl and also someplace beyond my rice bowl. Finally, she shrugged and spoke.

"I guess sometimes you just have to accept it, you know? Like, if you just say, 'ok this is how it's going to be,' you deal with the end on your own terms. I think the terminal patients who do that ultimately have an easier time."

"Well thanks for that, Wednesday fucking Addams," I said, but didn't mean to scoff. Abby's eyebrows jumped.

"I know it's different than death," she apologized, "but I just mean there's still nothing you can do about it?"

"Isn't there though?" I watched Abby squirm some in her seat. "This isn't cancer. This is Buzzfeed. What the fuck does Buzzfeed know? Why should we have to kowtow to their black magic bullshit?"

"Yeah, fuck Buzzfeed," Abby concurred. "They don't even make their own content. I can only laugh at the same Tumblr post so many times." Her eyes narrowed. "Why do I keep coming back?"

"They can't actually­ control us," I said. "There has to be more to life. We're humans- we have souls!"

"Last night I watched a man die," Abby rested her fork against the side of her bowl. "It was a rough one, his face contorted pretty bad. I went home, couldn't sleep. I went on Buzzfeed. Saw a list of 25 Instagram Memes That'll Make You Laugh If You (or Someone You Know) Has a Vagina. I have a vagina. I didn't laugh."

"I've seen that one." Half of those Instagram memes were posted back in December.

"You'd think," Abby said, "that'd they'd know we aren't laughing."

"I don't think they care," I said.

"No," Abby said, "like, you think if they're all that powerful, they'd either always make us laugh, or they'd title the article to reflect our response to it."

"25 Instagram Memes that won't make you feel any less bored of life, whether or not you have a vagina."

"Right? It's like the only way they know anything is through the quizzes." Abby lifted her fork and I almost made a caustic remark, before a grin spread on her lips and her gaze bounced up and met mine.

"Wait," she waved her hands, animated, "wait, I think I got it."

I glanced around the table.

"What if Buzzfeed doesn't really control anything," she hypothesized. "What if it's just the quiz format that controls everything?"

She beamed as if she had just found a cure to cancer.

"I don't get it," I said. "Elaborate."

"Like, there's no evidence that you have to be part of Buzzfeed to control things. What if you just needed to make a Buzzfeed quiz yourself? And then you put in whatever you wanted to happen?"

"You mean, like," I squinted, "a community quiz?"

Abby nodded self-satisfied over a forkful of cilantro rice.

"But those all suck," I said, "and plus, the algorithm buries them-"

"Look, it doesn't matter if it doesn't hit the front page or whatever. As long as you fill it out and it gives you 'you won't meet your soulmate in ten days and you can date Rafi for a year or until you both get bored.'" Abby with the common sense solution. If you don't like the quizzes you take, make your own quiz.

"That might actually work," I said.

I pried my phone from my small-girl-khaki pockets.

***