Life

How To Lose An "Invisible Boyfriend" In 200 Texts

Contrary to what our coupled up friends think, a lot of us single people have no problem kicking ass in life sans ball-and-chain. We’re perfectly happy living hopelessly fulfilled lives all by our solo. Sure, after a certain age, questions and mild concern about our single status start to come up more frequently with our family and friends. As a perpetually single person, I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever felt even the slightest bit tempted to invent a romantic partner for the sake of putting on a front to the people in my life. (That is, save for the purposes of the occasional dude deflection at a bar or party, in which case, I won’t hesitate to make up a fake boyfriend pronto. It’s a horrible but effective reflex which I fight because why is the prospect of another man seemingly the only effective way out of such a cornering? I digress.)

Despite the wild abandon of sane rationale, for all you ladies who have ever felt pressured to manufacture a boyfriend to please family, coworkers, or other people in your life who really shouldn't have a say in the matter, the Invisible Boyfriend app exists. Hope, in the form of a professionally-generated, fake boyfriend.

I mess with dudes on Tinder all the time (an admittedly horrible habit that I'm trying to quit). It’s fun to push and push and push and find the floor on their capacity to accommodate crazy. How many more lizard Emojis until he unmatches me? (It’s really no wonder how I manage to stay single.) How would an actual human paid to respond well, respond? There had to be a floor there, too. And I was going to find it.

Signing up means you have to create your own profile. That’s when I actually cobbled some hope—the personal gender options totaled to over 40. I thought, Holy progression, Batman! Maybe this is actually legit! But then I just chose “female” and continued. You get to craft your boyfriend through a few simple steps. You select a photo (“of a real person!” the site is sure to clarify), name your boyfriend, select an “identity,” and draft up a meeting story. The first name had the capacity to hold 30 characters, so I Googled extra long male names. After a not-so-careful name-selection process, "Aurelius Walker The Teacher I Met At A Party" and I started texting.

Here is the truly unsavory account of how I attempted to get his fake ass to dump my crazy one.

Image: Guian Bolisay/Flickr

I realized I wasn’t sure how to pronounce “Aurelius”. I went into the app and changed it to Arturo—still exotic, yet manageable. Things developed normally enough:

I wanted things to move faster. This felt like catching up with an old professor I never secretly wanted to bone.

I wanted to come off as equal parts horribly insecure and chill.

My fingers electrified with lightning and now I was really opening the floodgate of crazy. I didn’t interview anyone who legit interacts with Invisible Boyfriend along the lines of its intended use (texting in front of family, friends, or whomever else you need to show Proof Of Boyfriend to), so I’m not sure what kind of initial texts these Invisible Boyfriends and Girlfriends were used to intercepting. I assumed they didn’t typically pick delusional fights. I continued.

That was not the correct response.

Also, these texts were happening at about 10AM my time, which would’ve been 7AM for Arturo (whom I decided lived in Portland, Oregon, aka, The Land Of Boyfriends). I really wanted to ask why he didn’t have his iMessages turned on (HOW CAN THERE BE TRUST WITHOUT A READ RECEIPT? HOW?) but decided to go with the big mother query instead at the last minute.

It’s apparent there is a lag in Arturo’s text message interception. One would think an advanced city like Portland (his number had an actual Portland area code) wouldn’t have to clear such pedestrian hurdles. That, or…The Invisible Boyfriend hackers field incoming texts to make sure the Boyfriends aren’t about to be murdered or something. But let’s blame Portland. I call him out regardless in another manic flurry.

Well, we have him emoting through punctuation design again.

I feel encouraged that he’s openly feeling uneasy. Nobody likes a doormat, Arturo.

Joke experiment aside, I have a problem with this answer. I elect to punish him with silence for the next 12 hours. Then I find this important photo I have to share with my compensated sweetie:

Hours pass. I scientifically determined Arturo’s typical response time between two and 20 minutes. It’s not batshit to assume photo-sending capabilities give the Invisible Boyfriend user too much power to possibly fuck up their Invisible Boyfriend’s day. This is acceptable. I fall asleep. But then I have to get up to pee and have a burning question:

Although his response was more belated than I’d prefer from strangers who I pay to text me, I cut him slack and go back to sleep until morning.

Time to move on from the crystal humping and actually go for it.

I’d read before about Invisible Girlfriends actually being dudes. Before this question, I wondered if maybe Arturo was another late-20s woman just trying to lasso some extra dough. Maybe it was a bunch of men answering for Arturo, maybe only one. But now I knew for sure the person writing back was definitely a guy.

At this point, I have to forcibly remind myself not everyone I’m texting is Arturo. I have legit (non-lizard Emoji) conversations going with two last-nameless Tinder dudes while this is all going on and almost hit “send” on several Arturo messages. One IRL guy did actually get the goat photo. I decide to take a break for a little to calibrate in a way that mimics basic human emotion. For a bit.

It’s pretty OK but I also wonder if Arturo is having a minor stroke.

I feel disappointed. He shows promise as quickly as he shows he is perpetually exhausted and complaining about wanting coffee. I test his calling-out abilities next.

Arturo.

He evades the question. Again. Arturo isn’t much of one for definitives, as it turns out. He also didn’t know how to play “Fuck, Marry, Kill”, which is a dealbreaker for me in real life. At this point, I realize that I might not be having much luck getting this guy to dump me, but he’s given me about a dozen solid reasons to drop his ass.

I find this annoying but move on.

A semi-serious question. Then I ask about his past, several times.

I panic later into the night when he stops responding to my texts. I check my computer when I get home and see the 100 texts I’d paid for were up, so I ordered more. (Fact: Boyfriends, both real and imaginary, will end up costing you much more than you anticipate.)

I don’t even know what’s happening anymore. I’m getting desperate and bored to be rid of this leech. But then he hints at some weird childhood darkness—the most indulgent he’s gotten thus far in terms of showing any form of personality or general, non-Will Smith knowledge of the world around us.

No, Arturo.

This continues in circles for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. I meet up with a visiting friend and her sister and we start drinking vodka heavily.

Finally! Things are looking promising that anything is possible. “Anything” in this case meaning “scaring someone so badly that they stop talking to you even though they’ve literally been paid to do so.”

At this point, I’m dragged to an actual club where a man named Empire is buying my drinks. I berate him further about Jessica and throw all caution into the toilet (where I should have also probably placed my vodka vomit IRL right about then).

And then…that was it. I stopped hearing from my beloved, put upon Arturo. I sent a few more all-caps texts to be completely sure he was gone. At first, I felt proud for my successful attempt to frighten a man paid to text me back into halting any response efforts. Unfortunately, it just turns out we were out of another 100 texts. But that was enough for me, and likely enough for all the Aureliuses, Arturos, and Artoros involved. I shared this forlorn ending with a friend I kept posted along the way. She shrugged, “Well, I guess that’s how you lose an Invisible Boyfriend. Stop paying him.” Indeed.

In the end, I surprised myself with how attached to Arturo I grew during our short time together. Most of all, I was surprised what a nice option Invisible Boyfriends could be for those of us with drunk texting problems. Like slightly more intelligent Tamagotchis you don’t have to clean up after. Shit, that might be worth the $26 a month alone.

Miss you, Arty. The ocean goblins and I await your return from the West Coast.

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