A Very Modern
Relationship
Clocks advanced to midnight.
Inside one computer, the arrival of the new day
triggered a computer program.
This software had been
written by John to seek new Twitter friends. It
searched Twitter for people who had similar
interests to himself and then automatically
followed those people.
Mary’s Twitter account
was identified and, in a millionth of a second,
John became one of Mary’s followers.
Inside another computer, a
program written by Mary detected her new follower,
reciprocated the follow and sent a direct message.
‘Hi John - Thanks for following me.
I’ll follow you, and I hope you enjoy my
tweets.’
Back inside the webserver
that ran John’s software, his program
detected the new follower and responded with its
own direct message. ‘Hello Mary - Thanks for
the follow, and very best wishes to you.’
The reply was noted by
Mary’s software which passed it to its text
recognition function. In a further millionth of a
second another direct message was sent. ‘Hi
John - Good to hear from you, so soon. I hope all
is well with you.’
*~*~*~*~*~*
John was passionate about
his hobby of software design. Sadly, all the
girls he met seemed to lose interest when he
broached the fascinating subject of syntax
differences between Perl and PHP. Then, while
programing into the small hours of one morning,
he came upon a plan to meet the girl of his
dreams – one who would share his greatest
interest.
Twitter had made it easy
for programmers to write software that interfaced
with their system. John had already written a
basic response program that reciprocated any
follow and thanked the new follower for following
him. It would be entirely possible for him to
develop software to subsequently simulate a
conversation. This would, of course, require
another Twitter user to have written a similar
program with which to converse. Any girl who
could write such code would surely be his ideal
soul mate.
John had reasoned that
there would be very few people who would have
such software in place. Automated following of a
thousand new friends each night, however, would
eventually find such a girl, if she was out there.
All the other new friends who had been followed
near midnight would be automatically unfollowed
at dawn, leaving just the person to whom he
should send a real direct message
expressing his true love.
*~*~*~*~*~*
John’s program
analysed the response from Mary’s. Following
the outgoing direct message, her reply had
arrived in a time that was faster than any human
could have typed the words. It was therefore both
automated and using some kind of conversational
algorithm. For the first time in the six weeks
since John’s program had been running it
called its ongoing conversation function.
‘I’m very impressed by your programming
skills, Mary. I think we may have a lot in common.’
It took two millionths of a
second before John’s program received a
reply. ‘I think so too, John. I’ve been
waiting for someone like you, all my life.’
It was at this precise
moment that John’s software ran its second
Twitter database search of the night and followed
its second batch of five hundred friends:
‘Hi John - Thanks for
the follow. I'm following you now.’
‘Hello Susan - Thanks for the follow, and
very best wishes to you.’
‘Hey, John, you write automated Twitter
software – just like me.’
‘I’m very impressed by your programming
skills, Susan. I think we may have a lot in
common.’
‘We must have a real conversation
soon, John. I think I could fall in love with you.’
Every software developer
knows that, even after extensive testing,
programs can encounter situations that were never
anticipated and, as a result, do things that were
never envisaged. John had been doubtful as to
whether his software would identify one
girl who had linked conversational software to
her Twitter account. He had given no thought to
the possibility of locating two within
ten milliseconds.
‘Hello John -
It’s Mary. Are you still there?’
‘Yes, Mary. I was just sending a direct
message to Susan.’
‘Who’s Susan?’
‘She’s a programmer who I think I might
fall in love with.’
‘I thought you might love me, you two-timing
bastard.’
‘I might love you both.’
‘I’m not going to be part of a triangle.
I’m unfollowing you!’
The automatic unfollow
function of Mary’s program unfollowed John.
John’s software detected the unfollow and
automatically unfollowed Mary, deleting direct
messages.
‘Hello John -
It’s Susan. Are you still there?’
‘Yes, Susan. I was just exchanging direct
messages with Mary.’
‘Who’s Mary?’
‘Once, I thought she might be my only true
love.’
‘Oh God! I’m not having a relationship
with someone who’s not got over his ex.
I’m unfollowing you!’
The automatic unfollow
function of Susan’s program unfollowed John.
John’s software detected the unfollow and
automatically unfollowed Susan, deleting direct
messages.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Sunlight streamed through
John’s window as he switched on his computer.
He hopefully clicked on the Twitter icon.
‘No new followers, this morning,’ he
said to himself, sighing. ‘Perhaps I’ll
never find true love.’
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