{"id":2476,"date":"2022-01-18T12:39:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T12:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2476"},"modified":"2022-08-11T13:21:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T13:21:08","slug":"your-boyfriend-experience-by-james-patrick-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2476","title":{"rendered":"Your Boyfriend Experience by James Patrick Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your Boyfriend Experience<\/em><\/strong> by James Patrick Kelly (Entanglements<\/em>, 2020) opens with the narrator Daktari playing a \u201ctherapy adventure\u201d with his partner Jin. As they play, Jin asks Dak to go on a simulated date with a new generation \u201cplaybot\u201d called Tate which Jin has developed for the company he works for. Dak is not particularly happy with this suggestion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why was I so upset? Because I couldn\u2019t remember the last time Jin and I had been on a date. How was I supposed to get through to this screen-blind wally who had the charisma of a potato and the imagination of a hammer, and who hadn\u2019t said word one about the Shanghai soup dumplings with a tabiche pepper infusion that I\u2019d spent the afternoon making?
\u201cJust because we call them partners doesn\u2019t mean you have sex with them,\u201d he said, missing the point. \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to have sex with Tate, it will never come up. He doesn\u2019t care.\u201d
I wanted to knock the popcorn out of his hand. Instead I said, \u201cOkay.\u201d I flicked the game back on. \u201cFine.\u201d I huddled on the far side of the couch. \u201cYou win.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This passage illustrates two of the things I didn\u2019t much like about this piece: Dak\u2019s continual grievances about his relationship (later on he replies to a heartfelt marriage proposal with a grudging and conditional acceptance), and the endless mentions of food (Dak is a chef at his own \u201cforum\u201d, so we have mini-recipes pervading the story).
Eventually, about half a dozen pages in\u2014after a scene where he meets the boss of Jin\u2019s company, and sits with lawyers to sign legal papers (riveting stuff)\u2014Dak finally meets the very lifelike Tate, and is surprised to find that the playbot looks like him.
After this encounter Dak and Jin go to dinner, where Jin reveals the huge bonus he has received for finishing his project before proposing to Dak (see above).
The story kicks up a gear when Dak finally goes out on his date with Tate. The pair go to a very exclusive restaurant and matters proceed smoothly\u2014Dak likes Tate because, obviously, the playbot is programmed to adapt himself to his human user\u2014but Tate eventually causes a scene when his simulated intoxication causes him to loudly blurt out his love for Jin. After that the restaurant staff want both of them to leave, but the newly arrived owner smooths matters over.
Dak and Tate decide to leave anyway, and Tate suggests they go to a bowling alley he went to with Jin on a previous simulated date. There they eat (there is paragraph long review of the skinnyburger, \u201cdried\u201d, the tofu, \u201csoggy\u201d, and the firedog, \u201cnice umani finish\u201d, \u201cheat was more at the piripiri level than cayenne\u201d, etc. ) before later meeting Jin\u2019s mother who, as Tate knows from his previous visit, goes bowling there regularly. Dak subsequently learns that she doesn\u2019t appear to know he is living with her son (more grievance).
The final reveal (spoiler) occurs on the way home: Tate reveals he is imprinted on Jin and is now imprinted on Dak, and that he has been designed for couples so they can \u201cfill any holes in the relationship.\u201d Dak then realises that, if he rejects Tate, the persona the playbot has developed so far will be wiped\u2014so he invites it inside when they arrive at the flat.
This story has some interesting and lively parts (mostly when Tate is onstage) but it is essentially a flabby relationship story with a premise that is not convincing (the idea that most couples would invite a robotic third party into their relationship isn\u2019t convincing, and the more you think about this the more ridiculous it seems). It\u2019s also hard to like a story whose narrator is endlessly moaning about his relationship and other First World problems.
** (Average). 11,500 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your Boyfriend Experience by James Patrick Kelly (Entanglements, 2020) opens with the narrator Daktari playing a \u201ctherapy adventure\u201d with his partner Jin. As they play, Jin asks Dak to go on a simulated date with a new generation \u201cplaybot\u201d called Tate which Jin has developed for the company he works for. Dak is not particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[17,296,487,460,2,7,649,648],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james-patrick-kelly","tag-17","tag-296","tag-ai","tag-entanglements","tag-james-patrick-kelly","tag-novelette","tag-relationship-problems","tag-sexbots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5302,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}