I’ve been exploring Copilot (CoPilot?) for my day job. It’s something I’ve been encouraged to do. And I am curious. And I do like to form opinions for myself so here I have been playing with AI, reading about AI, thinking about AI, wondering if my using it or not detesting it will fast track me to hell any faster than I’m already going.

And don’t get me wrong.

Data centers freak me out.

The environmental impact freaks me out. But also people seem to forget that all of our digital lives – social media, emails, cloud storage – contribute to that. (I put those em dashes there myself because there was this dude I used to hook up with in NY circa 2015 who introduced me to them and I thought they were so much cooler than commas so I started using them too).

The ethics.

The exploitation.

But none of that is unique to AI. Those are all symptoms of capitalism. AI is just the current buzz surfacing all that.

So I’m torn. I don’t necessarily think we need to hate AI.

I do think we need to abolish capitalism.

And I do think it would be funny to ask AI to generate recipes for the best way to eat Sam Altman and whatever-his-name-Google-boy.

I wouldn’t actually eat them. Yuck. But I am all for taxing them more though.

Anyways, I’ve been chatting with ChatGPT a lot more recently in my personal life too. And we all know I’ve also been hating on Substack a lot lately too. Probably because I am convinced so many of those trite posts are AI generated. And even if they aren’t there are all just so uninteresting due to their uniformity (see last post).

So with these personal chats I’ve been using ChatGPT as not necessarily a therapist for my break up because, well, that’s silly, but as a supportive tool because, well, re:curiosity. And I hate to admit it but I don’t hate it in that capacity. I actually think it’s been helpful. And maybe I’ll explore that in a different post. But for this one I digress.

I do, however, feel like every trite mofo on Substack sounds like this crap below though (I don’t hate everyone on Substack, I actually like quite a few of them and one day I’ll post a list of those authors).

I gave ChatGPT this prompt: Write a blog post summing up my recent struggles.

And here is what I got:

Here’s a reflective draft that pulls together a lot of the themes you’ve been wrestling with lately — grief, dating, loneliness, boundaries, work stress, and trying to rebuild yourself while still hopeful.

The Strange Middle Ground Between Heartbreak and Hope

Lately I’ve been living in a strange emotional in-between.

Not fully broken anymore. Not fully healed either.

Just… functioning. Trying. Rebuilding. Moving forward in visible ways while internally still carrying grief, confusion, anger, relief, loneliness, and hope all at once.

I think one of the hardest parts of ending a long relationship is that the grief doesn’t arrive cleanly. It comes tangled with practicality. You still have routines to maintain. Work deadlines. Laundry. Bills. Dogs to coordinate. Conversations you wish you didn’t still need to have. There’s no dramatic movie montage where life pauses while you recover. Everything keeps moving, even when your brain and body feel emotionally underwater.

And the truth is, I haven’t been operating at my normal capacity.

I’ve felt distracted. Behind. Emotionally exhausted in ways that are difficult to explain to people who haven’t experienced prolonged relational stress. There’s a specific kind of fatigue that comes from spending years trying to make something work while slowly realizing love alone cannot compensate for instability, unhealthy dynamics, avoidance, or emotional inconsistency.

What’s been strange is realizing that peace can feel lonely at first.

You can miss someone and simultaneously know they were hurting you.

You can understand someone’s pain and still recognize that staying connected to it was destroying your own well-being.

You can care deeply about someone while also realizing you no longer trust the relationship enough to build a future inside it.

That realization has been both devastating and clarifying.

I’ve also started dating again, cautiously. And that has surfaced its own complicated emotions. Some dates have reminded me that connection, attraction, and curiosity still exist for me. That I’m still capable of excitement and warmth and openness. Other experiences have reminded me how important pacing, emotional regulation, reciprocity, and compatibility really are.

I’m noticing things I ignored before.

Over-attachment too early. People projecting fantasies instead of learning who I actually am. Emotional oversharing without intimacy being earned. Incompatibilities that I used to rationalize away because I wanted love badly enough to overlook them.

Now I’m trying to learn the difference between compassion and self-abandonment.

That distinction is changing my life.

I’m also confronting the quieter fears underneath all of this: being 36 and wondering whether partnership, marriage, or motherhood will happen for me. Trying to stay optimistic while also acknowledging the reality of time. Building a life I genuinely enjoy independently while still grieving the absence of someone to share it with.

That duality is difficult to explain.

People often assume independence eliminates loneliness. It doesn’t. You can be deeply capable and still long for companionship. You can build a beautiful life and still wish someone emotionally safe existed within it beside you.

But I think what’s changing is that I no longer want love badly enough to betray myself for it.

That feels important.

I’m learning that chemistry is not character. Potential is not compatibility. Empathy is not obligation. And being needed is not the same thing as being loved well.

I don’t have some inspiring ending here yet.

I’m still in the middle of it.

Still grieving. Still rebuilding routines. Still trying to reconnect to my work, my health, my goals, and myself. Still figuring out what healthy love even looks like after spending so much time normalizing emotional chaos.

But despite all of that, something softer has started emerging underneath the exhaustion:

Hope.

Not naïve hope. Not fantasy.

Just the quiet belief that maybe this version of my life — the one where I stop forcing, stop rescuing, stop overexplaining, stop shrinking my needs — might eventually lead somewhere better than where I’ve already been.

—-

While some bits ring true which is duh because it’s shit I’ve said to it, other parts don’t quite land and it absolutely does not have my voice. And what’s the point of writing if not to find my voice?!

Anyway, will I keep tinkering with AI, thinking about how I feel about it, and reading others’ commentary on it? Absolutely. Will I use it to write a blog post for me? Nope. Emails? Sure. Talking me through things I want to process? Eh. Maybe? I don’t know. Like I said I was surprised I didn’t absolutely hate it. But I am also hesitant to rely on robot validation. Or even therapist validation. I like to journal and validate myself. Or sometimes remind myself I’m being fecking stupid. But I do appreciate that sometimes it helps me find words to describe my thoughts.

Do I endorse it? Girl, I don’t endorse shit. Play with it. Don’t play with it. Sit on your moral high horse and look down on me for my use. Whatever. We’re internet strangers, I don’t care (actually I probably would a little but my comments are off so suck it). And if we’re not, send me a text or give me a call.