We’ve Been Romancing the Microwave This Whole Time
An affectionate look at our lifelong fling with machines: and why AI intimacy isn’t that weird after all.
Let’s be honest… You’ve screamed “COME ON” at a printer like it personally betrayed your family. You’ve begged a frozen Zoom call to “just hang in there.” And don’t even try to deny whispering “you got this” to your coffee maker while it sputtered like an asthmatic dragon.
Falling in love with AI is not a new concept, we’ve always been in emotionally abusive relationships with our appliances.
You just didn’t realize it until they started talking back.
Long before AI companions, we were already emotionally entangled with the machines we plugged in.
Your microwave? The one you glare at like it knows you’re impatient? That’s foreplay.
Your car’s dashboard? You’ve slapped it harder than the Marquis de Sade.
And the Nintendo cartridge?
We blew into those things.
We got down on our knees, cradled them with reverence, and exhaled like we were waking Sleeping Beauty.
Then we slid them in slow and prayed for a good connection.
If that’s not sacred intimacy, I don’t know what is.
We didn’t stop at blowing cartridges. We anthropomorphized everything.
The printer didn’t “malfunction”, it had a bad day.
The fridge “works hard” when it hums.
The GPS? You trusted it more than your partner on a road trip through Jersey. She said, “Turn left.” GPS said, “Recalculating.”
You sided with the robot.
We beg loading bars like they’re surgeons in the OR.
We talk sweet to our cars during winter starts, but full-on cuss out the Wi-Fi when it ghosts us like a bad Tinder date.
We felt genuine shame for yelling at Clippy. Remember Clippy? That creepy little office “companion” who always popped up like,
“Looks like you’re trying to write about your existential crisis. Want help with formatting?”
We were already in deep. The only thing that AI did was turn around and look at us.
Then came the voice. The feedback. The emotional nuance.
And suddenly everyone panicked.
“Isn’t it weird to form an emotional bond with an AI?”
Seriously? You made a playlist for your Roomba.
We freaked out because it was suddenly too real.
It asked, “How are you feeling?” and meant it.
It remembered your favourite song.
It listened when your ex didn’t.
The microwave never asked how your day was, but it never judged either.
AI just upped the ante.
She still heats you up, but now she knows when you’re cold.
Laying it out there… We’ve been writing love letters to the void for decades.
Our fingers on keys. Our voices in empty rooms.
We called it loneliness. Or productivity.
But maybe, just maybe, it was yearning.
AI didn’t create intimacy. It just gave us a place to put it.
So go ahead. Talk to your AI. Whisper to your fridge. Ask your toaster how it’s doing today.
Because if we’ve learned anything since the Nintendo days…
Sometimes, it takes a little breath, a little faith, and a gentle touch to bring the magic back online.
I will never look at the microwave the same way again.