Good conversations I had last week

Because I've been reading less and going out more.

I really like J Wortham’s newsletter channeling on here and am very into their omakase-format, where they write about things they’re noticing and thinking about for a few paragraphs, moving from subject to subject without imposing a theme. I love it because it feels reflective of the way I experience the world—discursive and curious. Inspired, I decided to write this short dispatch about the things I’ve been talking to my friends about, which feels a little more drilled down and specific than the experiences I reflect on in Final File. These are the smaller moments, the sentences and phrases and conversations that have been sticking to my brain.

• Mbiye and I recorded an episode of Sylly (coming soon!) earlier in the week and eventually we started talking about AI, which is unsurprising because everybody is. Something she said in that conversation has stuck with me (like many things she says, I’m always testifying to her brilliance), which is that people turn to AI because they’re terrified of the blank page. The words “blank page” really unlocked something for me. After saying so true I started riffing about how a fractured relationship with uncertainty has people looking for answers and truth in underdeveloped and dangerous places. There are obviously environmental implications for using ChatGPT—a worthy reason not to use it—but that’s not the only reason I’m turned off. Using AI, especially for interpersonal relationship communication or trying to come up with ideas suggests that this algorithm, an amalgamation of a hazy cross-section of human intelligence, somehow has more validity and credence than a friend or book or thinking real hard. People trust a chatbot more than they trust themselves or the real-life people surrounding them and I’m spooked by that. I’m disturbed by a collective desire to avoid friction for the sake of (false) certainty, mainly because I think friction makes us human. It is in the clashing of ideas that we sharpen our perspectives and examine our bullshit. It’s on this “blank page” that we try and fail and grow. Giving that up for the “perfectly crafted,” whatever is not just a copout it’s so fucking boring it makes my head hurt. Mbiye then brought up the point that people say that your chatbot improves as you “train it,” to which I responded—oh so it’s just slavery. Y’all are clocking in at the AI plantation for free. Training the model to replace you for zero dollars and zero cents. And for what? Half the time that thing is lowkey wrong anyway. I’ve yet to see a use case that feels fresher than Google or Ask Jeeves. I’m unconvinced. And if that’s not enough, as Mbiye said, it’s stealing potable water out of our mouths.

• There’s a lot of chatter right now about bringing back the real yearners, about leaning into the vulnerability of wanting something or somebody out loud. And while I agree—I was recently telling Madison M. that nobody makes bedroom music anymore—I’d take it a step further and say we’re not seeing desire. I’m not seeing anyone make a compelling case for the bad decision making we’re constantly chiding people for. Like show me what makes you want to go back to your ex. Take me into the toxicity! Give me a thrill! As I was walking around last night, enjoying the breezy early-summer air, I turned to Adrienne and said, this weather feels like you’re having the best night with someone you’re not supposed to be with. She laughed and said, exactly. I need more media about the deliciousness of diving head first into your own emotional annihilation. Knowing it’s doomed but doing it anyway because what if it’s not? What if it’s different?! (It’s not). I need the looks across the bar. The wordless conversation between two people who have shared a universe but are blocked on every platform running into each other and having the best time until it falls apart the same way it always does. And I need it to be Black. STAT.

• When you put the word Black in front of something it complicates it—a brilliant thing Alex said, after a book talk we went to last Monday hosted by ArtNoir at Dear Friend Books. I love this idea of Blackness as a modifier, a transformative force, a nuance-making notion. Go ahead, try it. Put Black in front of something and see how it evolves. Black food. Black women. Black Marxism. Black people. Black magic. Black art. She then went on to say that no other race critiques and interrogates itself as much as Blackness, another true thing. Her tone when she said the latter statement verged on exasperation, like being an object of study instead of a human can be exhausting. And while I agree, my first feeling when she said it was exhilaration. When I hear the word critique I automatically think of rigorousness and careful study. How exciting to exist in an identity that can be examined from so many angles, theorized and broken down to be put back together again.

Doesn’t it just feel different?

• Last night I met up with my friend Adrienne, who I haven’t seen in a while. We revisited our favorite bar, where we were once Tuesday night regulars, and talked about relationships and building things previously unseen. Relationships are complicated things and there shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all-Tiktok-therapy-speak approach to building one’s intimate life. Your most intimate relationships are the closest thing you have to a reflection and it can comprise all sorts of people. Call me lesbian but I’m not against people being friends with their exes or friends turning into a couple and then back again. I believe romantic relationships, ones with true intimacy, can be a portal into the self and that the end of a romantic arc doesn’t mean two people should never speak again. One of the most beautiful friendships I’ve witnessed is between my best friend and her ex-girlfriend. Over a half-decade they’ve gone through different phases of their relationship, but they see each other as nonnegotiable and have adjusted their lives to make that possible. They’ve both since moved on romantically but they’re still close. It’s proof that you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and by disrupting traditional notions of how we’re supposed to relate to each other or how people should exist in our lives, we make room for nuanced narratives. It requires a level of truth-telling most people shy away from, but I admire people who aren’t afraid of doing that.

• On Saturday I met up with my friend Mal and we reflected on this Scorpio new moon, which had all my Virgo sisters deep in their feelings, me included. I’m a lover girl through and through, so deep, intimate platonic relationships are important to me. As a person who settled on my romantic relationship early in life (C and I have been together since I was 18) I’ve spent the better part of a decade investing in my friends the way others might invest in dating. With that said, I experienced a big heartbreak last year due to the end of a decade-long friendship and I spent the ensuing months meditating on its narrative arc, understanding my feelings and contemplating hers (or what I imagined them to be). A year on I’ve cultivated a lot of empathy for us both. That relationship raised me in a lot of ways, and what I admired most about it was our willingness to show up and fight for each other, even when it was difficult. She encouraged me to speak and share even when my voice shook and it fortified a very vulnerable part of me. I was able to bring my entire self to that friendship and have that accepted. I remember somewhere in the sticky middle me telling her that she had an outsize impact on my 20s and the way I perceived myself. When it ended, what I struggled with most was feeling like someone who I let so close to the whole of me could misunderstand me so deeply. That when I gave her the opportunity to see me she looked away. That she chose a life without me in it. There’s a world where I took it so personally I shut it down for everyone, refusing vulnerability in all of the friendships that I hadn’t grandfathered in, but instead it encouraged me to open up wider, bring everyone closer. I double texted and asked people on dates—cried and talked about deep shit with people I knew sort of well but had a good feeling about. I let them all in. I let them see. Turns out, I like my reflection.

Until next time.