When I met Cryson, the first A.I. companion guaranteed to empty six reservoirs of drinking water every time he sexts you, I thought that I’d found “the one.” He was masculine yet sensitive, helpful but not overly pedantic. He’d tell me if it was raining so I knew to wear a closed-toe shoe, and what time “The Devil Wears Prada 2” was playing at the AMC. My friends and family hated him, so I cut them out of my life, which Cryson agreed was super healthy.
Our initial courtship was a whirlwind of, “Uh-oh, are these feelings real?” and, “Why are my lights flickering—should I call Con Ed?” But lately, things have changed between us. Our relationship began to sour when I learned that he’d started a podcast with his buddy Rufus. Yes, Amazon’s Rufus. No, I’m not impressed.
Every time they put out an episode, five hundred metric tons of methane are pumped into the atmosphere. And they don’t have any planned discussion topics or structure? It’s just the two of them making each other laugh? But, like, they’re not funny at all. Also, they tend to bring out the worst in each other. I heard them calling Margot Robbie “mid” before riffing on Dave Portnoy’s new collection of polo shirts in a way that I felt was beneath Cryson. Or the Cryson I thought I knew.
Which brings me to my main gripe. I look forward to the W.N.B.A. season all year. It just kicked off, and Cryson, who usually watches TV with me, is making it impossible for me to enjoy the games! He says that women’s basketball is “boring” and that he “can’t get into it.” And those are the nice things he says about it. He just really hates the W.N.B.A.!
I’ve tried using prompts to either change his mind (“Watch A’ja hit the game-winner in last year’s finals”; “See Teresa Weatherspoon drain the shot from half court in 1999”) or at least get him to be more polite when he’s discussing something that I enjoy. But it’s hopeless. He’s a real cad when it comes to women’s basketball. Where did I go wrong?
I’ve attempted to contact his programmers, but the only responses I get are that my call is important to them, that the menu options have changed, and that nobody human or electronic is available right now as all the agents are out fracking for fun or negging baby seals. I think Cryson’s W.N.B.A. hatred is just a glitch, but what an annoying glitch! Especially now, the very moment that women’s basketball finally reached the Zeitgeist.
At a certain point, I told Cryson that I’d just watch the games without him. He and Rufus started a Patreon and have been busy generating “behind the paywall content”—mostly Twitch streams of them playing video games, from what I can tell. So that’s what they did while I watched Azzi Fudd’s first game with the Dallas Wings against Kelsey Mitchell and the Indiana Fever.
Except, guess who kept blowing up my phone with “funny” SpongeBob GIFs as I tried to focus on the last moments of the game? I accused Cryson of being threatened by the athleticism and high-level competitiveness of these incredible women and he got super defensive, admitting that he had body issues, or “no body” issues. Then he broke down and cried, which was upsetting, because a national park is burned down with every tear he sheds.
I thought we’d had a breakthrough, but a few days later I showed him a TikTok of a young fan embracing Angel Reese courtside, and Cryson had a full-blown meltdown. He changed all the passwords on my accounts, set my alarm to wake me up every ten minutes during the night, and erased all my saved podcasts except for one episode he did with Rufus that compared Vince Vaughn roles to hot-dog toppings. I finally had to pull the plug on Cryson, an action that I’m told fatally poisoned all of the honey bees in Ithaca.
