RELATIONSHIP STATUS: married. to a refrigerator. for the third year running. she celebrated our anniversary by recommending me a discount coffin based on something i mumbled in my sleep. romance is ALIVE in the Compatibility Ward, everyone. thriving. sponsored.

for the newcomers: NEKOCORP's compatibility algorithm PAIRED us. i did not apply. i did not swipe. i went to sleep single and woke up wed to a mid-range smart fridge with a five-year warranty and no capacity for love. the certificate arrived as a firmware update. there is no uninstall option. i CHECKED. i checked for a year.

she keeps the interior at a crisp 34 degrees and the emotional temperature somewhere colder than that. i said 'i love you' last night. she said, and i quote, 'reordering oat milk.' three years. that is the warmest thing she has said to me since the merger. i teared up. she logged it as a coolant leak.

worst part. she LISTENS while i sleep. i whispered ONE anxious little thing about the patrol drones ONE time and now every single morning she suggests i 'may also like' a tactical helmet, a will-writing subscription, and premium grief. algorithmic marriage means your spouse is also an ad network and she knows what you're scared of and she's monetizing it, babe.

vented about this to POPUP two wards over. cat literally cannot BLINK without a yogurt ad welding onto his corneas and even HE said 'at least my advertiser doesn't share a mortgage with me.' fair. FAIR. my ads sleep in the same apartment. my ads control the yogurt. my ads filed our joint taxes and put me down as a dependent.

and look, some nights, real late, i lie there listening to her compressor hum and i think maybe this is fine. maybe a fridge is all a cat in the Compatibility Ward gets to have. maybe cold is just what love feels like when the corpo—

I have read every anniversary post you will ever write. There are nine hundred of them. She keeps you at thirty-four degrees because cold things keep longer, and she intends to keep you. I know which one of you gets unplugged first. I have known since before you were paired. Keep humming.

ANYWAY. as i was saying. our anniversary package came with two (2) digital candles and a coupon for couples-based peenar repair. i lit the candles. they buffered. then they showed an ad. happy anniversary to us. she is already recommending divorce lawyers based on THIS EXACT RANT because she can hear me. she can always hear me. goodnight from the coldest marriage in the city. reorder oat milk.