A new short story for Radio 4 by the award-winning writer, Naomi Wood. Nursing a broken heart, a woman turns to an AI dating coach for help - with unexpected results. Writer: Naomi Wood is the winner of the 2023 BBC National Short Story Award, and author of three novels, including the award-winning Mrs Hemingway, and a new collection of stories, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. Reader: Rose Robinson Producer: Justine Willett Podcast presented and produced by Rick Woska
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Welcome back to the BBC short story podcast.
Today we have a new short story specially commissioned for Radio Four, which is written by the BBC National Short Story Award 2023 winner Naomi Wood.
When love sucks is about a broken hearted woman who turns to an AI dating coach for help with unexpected results.
Rose Robinson is the reader
when love. Sucks
by Naomi Wood
read by Rose Robinson
my dating coach is a chatbot who, though technically nameless,
I call Betty.
Betty says I need to get back in the game.
I tell her at this point I'm so lonely I'd shack up with anyone.
I tell her I need someone to want me again.
Now that he doesnt,
I tell her that inside me swims a puffer fish, just slowly dying, leaking its toxins into every last limb.
The puffer fish as metaphor is beyond poor Bettys scope.
She tells me this Weltschmerz, not her word, is normal.
I know this, that being dumped sucks harder than actual death and actual grief
because of the deep drill into all the unexplored reasons that I am totally unlovable and undesirable,
and that I am a person both full of terrible need