Ah, love, this simple word carried so much weight for me - well, it did at some point.

I grew up as your average kid, swearing to never kiss a woman and reacting in disgust at the very mention of romance. Of course, like your average kid, I grew out of that. And by the time I was around sixteen, the hormonal imbalances forced me to yearn for love and affection - not helping was my interest in romance stories, be it anime, manga, visual novels, hell even random fan fiction on characters I shipped. It was fun, but I felt as though the romance I sought was impossible, and at that point, a certain company popped up.

It was called aiAI Industries, a company set on matchmaking people through means of observation and collection of data that would be fed to, well, obviously, an AI.

It was apparently government-funded for whatever reason, I guess romance was also becoming part of the economy, and at the time, it was fairly new and was testing out the waters by picking a select few thousand per country, a lot of people were skeptical and when chosen declined the invitation, after all, it was disclosed that to collect the needed data they would have to monitor you and your movements for a week, install a few cameras in your house and strap a microphone and GPS on you, so the invitation rotated for a bit, since like any AI more data equals a better AI, and eventually, wouldn't you know it, it landed on me. My friends laughed at me for it - to them, the romantic idiot fell for it and was gonna get microchipped now; I couldn't blame them. It was hard to have normal conversations and just live while knowing my actions and words were being fed to a machine, but it was well worth it. After the grueling week that was the monitoring phase, they took back the cameras and the microphones and said they'd have the results in a few days.

I was anxious but also excited, butterflies and all, God, I was such a kid. But once I did get the data back, it registered me to a beautiful girl. Amanda Adler was her name. She had long, straight brown hair that glistened in the photo they gave me of her. She had large brown eyes I could only vaguely make through her black tinted glasses, with a smile that could win an award, from me, of course, she was absolutely my type and also my age, and at this point, I was just hoping they had a good photo of me to give her. After this, they gave me her number and address, which I had agreed to provide mine as well, and in excitement, I texted her and asked her if she wanted to meet up, she was up for it and we decided to continue our conversation at our meeting place. I couldn't sleep, like a child before his school trip, I was too excited to go, but I still rushed out as soon as I could, a good 20 minutes early was when I arrived and saw her. I chuckled, seeing that I wasn't the only one up and early for it, she noticed me, and we went off. It was fun.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Call it cliche, but I really enjoyed myself. Just talking with her was great, guess all of those conversations I had recorded made it so we could always have common topics to talk about, and all of my actions and locations I went to meant we had common ground for places we wanted to visit on our date. This was the life I thought, and well, it WAS my life for a good few years, we just spent it happily together, and, well, I even decided to seal the deal. We got hitched at twenty-one, and it was bliss, even our career paths were perfect for each other, she was the kind and caring housewife, and I was a marketing executive at a relatively small but growing company. It was great, but things started to feel slower. I don't know how to explain it but it kind of stagnated, the status quo became what we lived for, and it was as if a certain charm and joy disappeared. At first, I thought it was just me, but even Amanda started to look gloomier, and one thing led to another, and eventually, she asked the question.

"Hey, do you wanna split up?"

I knew it was coming really - it was impending even, and all I could do was agree. We went our separate ways after that. After four years of dating and four years of married life, it was hard to get by without her, but I've managed in these past months, managed to wreck my life, I mean, I've been cooped up for a good few weeks now, decided to resign my job, I didn't want to burden them by just disappearing and left voluntarily, friends have come and gone to try and help, but not much has changed.

"Sigh, and it was all so perfect."

I couldn't help but think, but I knew it was also a lie, and if that was a lie, maybe all of the love I'd experienced was also a lie, maybe there's a reason why matchmaking is an outdated practice and why I had lost what I held dear, or at least what I thought was dear. That was when I heard a knock on the door.

"Mr. Blaithe, we're here to inquire about your recent ..."

I couldn't hear the last part too clearly before yelling out.

"Alright, I'll be down in a sec."

And for the first time in a few weeks decided to make some human contact.