The day started like every other working for Ed and me. We were both working from home on that day. He woke up two hours before me and got on his laptop.

When I woke up, I made two cups of coffee because I needed my morning fix before getting started on my work.

We were each seated in our respective corners. That was how we operated when we both worked from home. An hour into my work, I decided I needed a little help from our ‘favourite consultant’, ChatGPT. One of the perks of working next to Ed was his premium subscriptions.

I turned to him to ask if he could look up something for me but he had left the room. I had been too focused on my work to notice. His laptop was on the coffee table, so I took it to look up what I needed. I opened a ChatGPT tab. I was about to type in my query when I noticed there was one item in the history section.

The title was gibberish letters, and I decided to click on it out of curiosity. I thought it was going to be interesting to discover how OpenAI interprets such prompts. I did find something interesting, but I wasn’t ready for the discovery.

“Why are you on my laptop?” Asked Ed when he walked in and saw the look on my face.

“So this is what you have been up to?” I asked him when I could finally put together a string of words.

“That’s violating my privacy,” said Ed defensively.

“The violation of our privacy is the least of my concerns. I don’t know what’s worse, that you’re using ChatGPT to help you sext or that you’re sexting multiple women,” I said in frustration.

“Babe, it’s not what you think,” said Ed.

“Really?” I asked him, rolling my eyes.

He had grown distant for a while, but he blamed it on a busy work schedule. I knew something was different, but I didn’t think he was cheating. Ed was the typical tech guy. He was smart, witty, focused and introverted. We’d been together for almost a year, and infidelity had never been an issue.

“Assuming I believe you, what is all this?” I asked him.

“I’m doing a side hustle,” said Ed.

“What kind of side hustle includes sexting?” I asked.

“Just a chatting service,” said Ed.

“You just got promoted at work, and it came with a pay rise, and you have quoted local destinations in the filth I have read,” I told Ed.

He was cornered. He struggled to find an alternative explanation, and when he couldn’t get one, he stormed out of the room. I tried to get his laptop to read more of the messages. I had so many questions whose answers I thought were in that chat, but Ed grabbed the laptop.

I cried my heart out. A timer from my phone signifying an upcoming deadline interrupted my heartbreak session. I got angrier at him for interrupting my workflow. I soldiered through my work and then got back to ruminating over Ed’s ChatGPT chat history.

From what I had read before Ed came in, it was clear that he was talking to multiple girls. He had referenced Tinder, and it seemed like he was refining what to tell girls on the platform. The chat was full of variations of different lines of conversation.

As I processed this discovery, I wondered if he had ever used ChatGPT to respond to our conversations. I went down a rabbit hole, copy-pasting our conversations on AI checkers. After going on about it for a while, I wondered why I was even checking. My mind wandered back to the other women. How many were they? How far had their interactions gone?

I was spinning out of control. Something about him using AI to have conversations with women felt off. It felt like I had discovered a dirty secret that changed my view of him. I confronted him for more answers but we only argued further.

I left the house and looked for a friend to help me process the situation. From my conversation with my friend, I discovered it wasn’t uncommon for men to seek chatting assistance from the platform.

“Is this how the dating pool is now?” I asked my friend.

“Welcome back to the nonsense,” my friend joked.

I left Ed despite his attempts to win me back. He claimed that it was harmless flirting, but I couldn’t get past the matter.