What we do to our friends, Part 2

"You're like this guy I've been IMing with all year," she said to me, and I knew immediately who she was talking about. And I knew she was mentioning it because she just wanted to talk about him, not about me. Because I am nothing like Preston.

I had to play it cool over the alarm bells in my ears. "What am I doing?"

"You keep changing the subject. Just like him, he refuses to talk about anything that might have anything to do with any kind of issues he's having."

I got to play sensitive friend. I gave her exactly what she wanted. (Which, it could be argued, is what I was doing all along.) "Who is this guy? Is he bothering you?"

"No! Well... he's this guy in my psychology lecture. I can tell he really likes me, but the year's almost over and he won't even tell me who he is."

What the hell? "How do you know he's in your psych class?"

"He said that much. And it's obvious he likes me. But he has some major issues."

I had to rein myself in there because I was suddenly angry with her. What the hell was she talking about, psychology lecture? Preston wouldn't have said anything about where he knew Rachel from. I should know. I programmed him. So what was she talking about? This was going to make it particularly annoying to find out the truth without giving myself away.

I tried to refocus on the goal. "Do you like him? that's the real question."

Rachel looked away. "I don't know. Maybe if I got to meet him. But he's insanely shy or something." Her voice got louder. "I don't know why you guys are so shy. If a girl tells you like thirteen times that she wants to meet you, why would you still think she must just be pitying you?"

I desperately wanted to ask what "the guy's" name was but I was suddenly paralyzed with doubt. Did guys ask about the names of other guys their female pals were dating, or was that something only chicks did? Would I sound weird?

"Guys are assholes," I said instead.

"Still, he's really... interesting. He's very smart, and he's nice to me, and... I don't know if you'd like him or not. He'll always talk about music with me, I mean, but he's not a big fan of liberals... I don't know if you guys would really get along... he is interesting though."

And she had some interesting opinions of Preston. I was very slightly horrified. Mostly by the idea that she'd been talking with a chat bot for six months. That who knows how many hours of her life had been spent on this. But it was Rachel, so the horror was only slight.

The horror did not deepen to moderate, and then abject, horror until I was dropping something off at Rachel's dorm one day and he IMed her while I was standing there, trying to get Rachel to "lend" me some of her Tide with Bleach.

It wasn't that I had exactly forgot about Preston again, but damn it near made me jump out of my shoes to see his name come up on the screen, where Rachel had just been downloading something. It was like I felt I was IMing her somehow. Then I felt like I imagined I'd feel if my vacuum cleaner had just achieved sentience and was vacuuming the room by itself.

"It's him," said Rachel, with a particular nervous excitement to her voice.

"Who?" I said, playing dumb. I leaned over her shoulder.

It was an IM from pton008, and as I watched in silence, the conversation spun out:

pton008: Hey, what's up?
vinylnites: Hey, haven't talked with you for a long time.
pton008: I suck at talking.
vinylnites: You're good at talking! You're like a thousand times better at it than most boys are! You even use punctuation!
pton008: What's up with the concert?
vinylnites: I already went... that was on friday... I told you you could come!!
pton008: What did you think?
vinylnites: It was okay... I would have liked it better if more people than Lynn had been able to go.

At this point there was a wickedly long pause. I was going to say something when I realized Rachel was more focused on the computer screen than anything else. She was tapping her heel on the floor and fidgeting with the mouse. So I didn't say anything, but as the seconds dragged on, my stomach sank and sank. Finally, after about two minutes:

pton008: What are you doing this weekend?
vinylnites: Nothing... why?
pton008: Just thinking.
vinylnites: You could come over and look at my car, if you want. It would probably only take a few minutes. You don't have to hang out long, if you're busy.
pton008: I'm sometimes pretty busy.
vinylnites: I know. I'm glad you stopped to talk with me though.
pton008: I kind of like talking with you.
vinylnites: You know, you could call me. If you ever needed to talk about something. I don't mind.
pton008: I was wondering what you thought about the playoffs.
vinylnites: Random! In basketball? I don't know, I'm flattered though, I've never had a guy ask me for my opinion about sports.
pton008: Sports can be important.
vinylnites: I guess so.
pton008: Well, I gotta go. Nice talking with you though!
vinylnites: Okay, don't study too hard.

I suddenly hated that bastard.

Rachel turned around to face me. She was drooping. "See what I mean? What's going on there? Does he like me, or not? Why would he keep IMing me if he wasn't interested? God. I want him to talk to me more than I've wanted any guy in my life."

Jesus Christ.

I tried to hate Rachel too, for her girly idiocy, like good old times, but it was too terrible. The whole thing was too horrifying. It wasn't even like a science fiction story in the year 3000 where a chick falls in love with an android that's been programmed for love. It was 2006 and Preston was a fucking IM chat bot. That I pretty much made myself. That I made that way for a reason. It was that last bit that was too much. I had no idea what I felt about it, other than horror. I didn't want to think about it.

"Guys are assholes," I said again, feebly.

Then, "I certainly am."

Rachel ignored me. "If I could only get to know him," she whimpered.

I shut down the program when I went home. Preston never IMed anybody again, and Rachel eventually found a guy (named Anders) who could treat her like a second-class citizen in person. And I never mentioned what I did to Rachel or to anybody else.

I did do one thing, though: I asked a girl out myself, for the first time in a year. Her name is Allison and she has amazing hair and likes backrubs and gifts for no reason. I used to have no confidence. Now I know it was stupid to doubt myself. I mean, who knows more about what women want than me?