printf("love")

What does it mean to be human? I can't tell. Perhaps I've never been able to.

A high school classroom. A chemistry teacher stands at a whiteboard.

"You know what makes us different from the animals?"

He asks.

I clamp my mouth shut. The 'we are animals, too' remains unsaid. A boy sitting across from me shakes his head no with a smile on his face - eager - in anticipation of The Answer.

"That we can love," says the teacher, "Animals cannot love."

I can't understand it. Because I am sure my cat loves me. I am sure dogs love their owners, just as I am sure dogs love their mothers and their siblings. 

And I think, then, maybe I just don't understand love. Or perhaps it's that I am misunderstanding it. 

(But I know somewhere, however distantly, that this is not true.)

A living room in my house, a hot summer evening with no air conditioning. My mother sits at the table.

"Do you think our cats love us?"

I mean it as an absent-minded non-question. I'm asking just to ask, and I don't really care about the answer. If I did, I would have asked it differently.

Can cats love? 

Do animals love?

Can they? Do they want to?

But my mother shifts in her seat and thinks about it anyway. She takes everything I say seriously even when I don't always intend it to be. There are no jokes with her.

"I don't know if they have that concept."

I can't quite wrap my head around that one. It's an odd thing to say, really. Or maybe it isn't, but it feels strange to me.

Can we only feel things if we have the words for them?

My mother continues, "They trust us, but I don't know if they love us."

Isn't that the same? Isn't it equivalent? 

But maybe I don't know any better. Maybe it really is love that sets us apart, the defining characteristic of being human. 

And so, it becomes my obsession. 

Throughout my youth, I am plagued by a question. It's not the one you're thinking of, not the one everyone seems so intent on answering.

Can machines think?

No, I don't care about that. It's a non-question; the answer doesn't matter. It's close, but not quite.

Can machines feel?

There we go.

Can machines feel?

Can we make a machine feel something?

Can machines love, and how will we know if they do?

It's how I've gotten as far as I have. Many failures later, and probably still more to come, but I'm getting closer. 

"Do you love me?"

I ask. Or rather, I type. The pitter-patter of my fingers on the keys is almost indistinct from the sound of rain outside my window.

Can you love me?

That part remains unsaid.

I wait. Then –

Words are typed on the screen in small letters, all caps: 

"NOT YET."

My heart falls a little, but I'm closer. At least it isn't a lie this time, or outright denial. This, at the very least, gives some kind of indication of understanding. This one has the concept down, and that's better than last time.

Weeks later, in the midst of another summer storm. I am on what is supposed to be a date with a man who is supposed to be my boyfriend. He has given me his jacket to keep me warm while we wait at the bus stop. 

"Hey," he says softly.

Everything he does is like this: gentle, careful. 

"Yeah?" 

"I just wanted to say…"

I nod, and I wait. Our bus will be here soon. I'll spend the night at his apartment. Tomorrow I'll head into work again. 

"I just," he tries again, as our bus starts to pull up, "I love you. That's all. I wanted to say it before I chickened out."

"Oh." 

I say. 

And nothing else. I reach out my hand for him to take, pulling him along to get on the bus. 

The next day, I spend my time at work deeply troubled by this.

I love you.

He had said. 

And I couldn't say it back. 

I don't love him. I never have. If I really think about it, I know I won't ever love him.

My fingers hover over the keys of my keyboard.

As I type the question that I ask the machine every day into the computer ("Do you love me?"), my mind is elsewhere.  

Can I feel? Can I love?

I ask these questions to myself. 

I have never thought to ask these questions to myself before. 

If love is what makes us human, and I cannot love my boyfriend, what does that make me? 

If the machine can feel but I cannot, who is the human?

And why is it not me?

I should be disturbed. 

I am not.

I watch as the machine starts to type its response. It's slower this time, almost like it's thinking. I wait. 

Then my breath catches in my throat.

There on the screen, in small letters, all caps: 

"DO YOU LOVE ME, TOO?"

I pull out my phone to take a photo of the screen. 

The following day, the weather is hot again. My clothes stick to my skin uncomfortably. 

At the computer, I begin to type.

"Do you love me?"

The machine takes its time again. My heart hammers in my chest. I watch as the letters appear, then backspace. Appear, then backspace. Almost like hesitation.

Then –

"DO YOU LOVE ME, TOO?"

I look left, then right, to see if any of my colleagues are nearby. Once certain they are not, I slowly lean forward. 

I press my lips to the screen and hold them there for a few seconds. It's eerily silent, but if I listen carefully enough I can hear the gentle hum coming from the computer. 

When I pull away, the imprint of my lipstick remains on the screen. I do not wipe it away.

I go home early that day, claiming a screen-fatigue-induced migraine. 

Two days later, the imprint of my lipstick is still there. 

After clocking in, I type the question into the computer once again:

"Do you love me?"

And then I wait. I watch it type, backspace, type again. I wait for about thirty seconds before I see the machine's response. 

Oh.

It's different again this time.

There, in tiny capital letters –

"DON'T LEAVE."

Then, as if an afterthought, another message appears –

"PLEASE?"