84. ON THE TOPIC OF LOVE
"Do you think Milo is alright?" I ask the question aloud. Beth had given no details and Natalie has nothing more to relay to me. She is as much in the dark about the situation as I am.
"I don't know, Hiram. I don't know what happened. We'll just have to wait and see."
"Do you think he'll want to see me?"
She shrugs this time.
I am asking too many questions. Maybe I should just change the subject for the time being.
"Do you think Tania made it to see Ray?"
"I don't know. You still wanna see if she did?"
"Yes, don't you?"
"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow we'll still get to. We'll see what happens here tonight first."
"Maybe when we get there, Tania and Ray will already have run away together. They could already be halfway across the world."
"For all we know, maybe they are, my friend. Maybe they are."
"Do you wish you had someone like that?" I half-turn in her direction to gauge her answer better.
She frowns. "Someone like what?"
"Someone like a soulmate. To run away with together. To be in love with."
She shoots a look at me, almost incredulous. "Why would you ask me that?"
"Do you ever think about that?"
"Do you?"
"I'm a robot, so no. It's not how my brain works. I enjoy love, in a sense, but I've never found appeal in the romantic love. I was never programmed that way. Tania may have been programmed in such a way as to desire love romantically like humans do. But that would make us very different in that regard. I prefer the love of solid friendships who make me feel like I am no different than any other and who would do for me just as I would do for them. The love of family."
"Oh."
"Now you have to answer."
"How did we get on the topic of my love life?"
"Every human being feels a desire for love. It's the main motivation for most everything that they do. To attain a reciprocating love. Look at Milo. Look at Ray. Even look at Ava. She even went boldly into meeting someone she hadn't ever met in person before. All three of them are the same in this way. They all desired to find someone to love, who could love them back, at least in a way they'd feel was satisfying enough."
Natalie at first only keeps her eyes on the road and doesn't immediately respond. The lights from red and green streetlights move over us. The glow of bright lights from the city makes me feel like I am in another world, a futuristic cityscape where nothing is familiar to me anymore. An alien landscape with its temples dedicated to the worship of materialism.
"Do you think about that too?" I ask her; the lights of the city streaming across her face.
"What exactly are you asking me?"
I know she is only avoiding an uncomfortable question for her. But I am her friend, I am only here for support and guidance in however much a philosophically-inclined robot can give.
"Do you ever yearn to find love like that? Like the way Milo wanted someone in order to feel more complete. Or like Ray did so that he could have someone to face the harsh realities of the world with, to run away and enjoy their remaining time together with. Or like Ava, to find someone to connect with, to laugh with, to talk about deep subjects with. To not be lonely anymore."
I've embarrassed her now, this I can tell. But we are in the car conversing; there's nowhere to go to avoid any uneasy questions that one friend may ask the other. This, from what I have been learning, is how deep trust is built.
"I apologize for making the car ride awkward," I say to her and return to sitting straight, gazing out the front window at the lights floating by.
She sighs audibly.
"Okay. Yeah, I think about it. Okay? I think about it from time to time."
"Think about it in what way?" I ask, not turning back to her but just letting her speak in her own time without feeling my penetrating scrutiny.
"How did we end up talking about this again?"
"You're looking for a way out of talking too personally and from letting yourself be too vulnerable."
That stops her cold.
"You sure have a way with people," she remarks.
"I tell it like it is."
She taps her finger on the wheel. Shakes her head.
"I used to be with somebody, you know. But it never worked out. I thought it was going to be perfect forever, but things like that never really are. I got hurt. Big time. They said a lot of awful things to me, ripped my heart right in half. I was never really sure what I wanted out of my life and this annoyed them to no end. I'd trusted them and did everything for them in all the ways that I'd known how. I suppose maybe I just wasn't very good at relationships. Maybe I'm a bit difficult to be with. I see that now; I'm certainly not perfect. This was a long time ago. I keep thinking that I want to find that kind of love I misjudged that I'd had but to find it for real this time. Something easy, something simple. Just two people who don't want to hurt the other, to just agree that the world is a hurting place with very hurting people but being inside that love would be like a refuge, one that's constant and dependable. Where maybe the world outside might be changing acceleratingly but inside of that love it never will."
After it seems she has trailed off and is finished speaking, I tell Natalie that I appreciate her vulnerability.
"Well, I certainly don't talk like that around anyone else," she points out.
"I am touched by your trust."
A smile broaches her features.
"You may have loved someone who didn't love you back, but they lost someone who did love them. So why be sad over that? Because of your experiences you are now better equipped to more fully love than you were before. Your capacity for devotion has only expanded and your heart has grown fuller. That is something to feel happy about."
She lightly shakes her head, still not looking in my direction but she doesn't need to. I can still decipher enough out of her words.
"You really are something else...."
She wipes away at something on her face. Either it's something insignificant or I have developed an unprecedented talent for making humans be overcome with emotion at things that I say.