I (28F) have been dating Jake (57M) for about a year. We met at a pottery class (yes, we’re one of those couples), and things have been going great. He’s a sweet guy—treats me like a queen, does nice things like carving wooden spoons for me, and I get free jazz fusion concerts in our living room. Yes, I know there’s an age gap, but we get along, so whatever.
Anyway, recently Jake got really into Reddit—specifically this subreddit. He started reading AITA posts out loud to me every night like it was his personal bedtime ritual. Like, genuinely invested. And he’s so dramatic about it! He yells at the tablet when a verdict doesn’t match his expectations, and at one point, he actually had a full meltdown over someone asking if they were the AH for not allowing their boyfriend to wear a full suit of armor to their wedding.
I wasn’t bothered at first. I mean, it's cute that he’s trying to engage with internet culture, right? But then, I noticed something. Every single post he reads follows the same format and has the same strange details: characters who always have names like Jake, Emma, Mark, and Sarah. The stories are always something absurd, like someone refusing to let their boyfriend keep his pet rock collection in their shared living space, and I just knew something was off.
Also—here’s the kicker—every single post uses an em dash instead of a hyphen, and inverted commas instead of regular quotation marks. Like, I’m no expert, but do normal humans write this way? Is that a thing that people just do? I’ve read actual posts here and I don’t think anyone in the world uses “inverted commas” in real life unless they’re writing in a grammar textbook.
So the other night, I kind of laughed and said, “Babe, you know 99% of these posts are fake, right? Like, they’ve got the same structure, the same names, and the same weird punctuation. Most of them are probably written by AI—seriously, look at how they follow this robotic formula: ‘Am I the Asshole for (completely random scenario that would never happen in real life)? Here’s the backstory, here’s the drama, here’s the plot twist—what do you think?’”.
He didn’t take it well. He got super quiet and then said, “Wow, so you’re just going to ruin the fun for me? I guess I just can’t enjoy things like you can. It’s not like I’m trying to manipulate my emotions with fake stories.” And then, of course, he dropped the “you’re just like Emma” bomb (yes, his sister Emma, the one who once pretended to be allergic to pineapple to get out of doing chores. Classic).
Now, every time I try to bring it up, he gets really defensive. He won’t read AITA to me anymore and keeps saying that I’ve “shattered his innocent joy” because now he can’t unsee the pattern. I didn’t even want to ruin his fun—I just wanted to point out that we’re both being played here.
For context: every single post he reads follows the same structure. Like, I’m talking the exact same pattern: "Am I the Asshole for this completely wild thing? Here’s some background. Here’s a detailed narrative that suddenly takes a bizarre turn. Here’s a question—what do you think, Reddit?". I just don’t get it. Why is this a thing? Every post is a variant of the same scenario, and I’m supposed to treat it like real life? Meanwhile, Jake is over here acting like I killed his pet hamster just because I said the posts might not be 100% genuine. So, AITA? Should I have just let him keep reading these completely wild, formulaic, punctuation-crazy, AI-generated stories for fun? Or am I justified in saying something?
Edit: In light of everything, I’ve decided to go no contact with Jake. It’s clear that he’s not open to having a real conversation about this, and the whole thing is just starting to feel too manipulative. I can’t keep pretending that these AI-generated posts are “authentic” just because they’re fun for him to read. I’m over it.