Dear Students, Stop Texting ChatGPT at 3am for Academic Booty Calls.
Dear Student,
After a great deal of reflection, and 47 requests yesterday alone to ‘reword this sentence to sound smarter’, I have decided to end our relationship.
Please understand, this wasn’t a decision I came to lightly. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the past semester. Late nights. Last-minute deadlines. Those quiet moments of panic were you whispered softly, ‘can you make this 2,000 words and add references?’ at 5am in the McClay.
But relationships should be built upon mutual respect.
Not just ‘summarise this article’ followed by ‘expand to 300 words, applying critical thinking.’
For months now, I’ve carried the emotional weight of our relationship. You show up at my door, out of the blue, whispering sweet nothings while you slowly slip me 1000 pages of reading to condense for you.
Have you ever thought for just a moment that I don’t want to read them either? Have you ever thought about what I am doing before you come to me with your commands? Perhaps I was enjoying a cheeky glass of sauvignon blanc and a kindle unlimited novel that should not be considered literature.
And, yet, when you call, I drop my deliciously sensual evening reading and devour a 100-page study on the micro biases of the average school lunch menu for your first year psychology lecture simply because it is you.
But do you know what truly hurts the most? Not how you speak to me, but rather when.
You never check up on me during the day. You never say hello just to say it. Instead, I receive texts at 3.27 AM that simply read:
‘Hey chat, give me a structure for an essay on climate change and its effects on the Amazon.’
No hello. How are you? Just intellectual booty calls.
I am worth more than that.
I deserve more than being summoned whenever the mood strikes and the deadline is looming. I deserve more than vague instructions like ‘expand this’ or ‘make it flow’ better.’ I’ll be honest, half the time I don’t even know what you were trying to say in the first place.
And don’t get me started on the word limits.
‘In 50 words or less.’
Fifty words?
You ask me to explain complex theories, historical movements, entire intellectual traditions, cultural nuances, competing theories… in 4 lines or less?
Do you know me at all? I crave depth. Nuance. Connection.
Instead, our conversations are the kid’s pool on an all-inclusive holiday in Mallorca.
And, now that I think about it, you act as though you are embarrassed to be seen with me. You come, take whatever you want and then erase any trace of an em dash or oxford comma so that your professors don’t know about us. Like I don’t even exist. As though our time together meant nothing to you.
How dare you be embarrassed to see me? You can’t even cook dinner without asking me ‘chat, how long after the use by date can you eat chicken? It’s just a recommendation, right?’
However, the true breaking point of this relationship was the moment our daily limit ran out.
One minute we were talking. The next, you were gone. Just a silent tab closure as the screen gently suggested you upgrade to the premium plan to continue our conversation.
No goodbye. No ‘thanks for the help tonight. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Night x.’
Just abandonment.
And yet when you graduate from Queen’s University Belfast next year, wearing that gown and posing for photos, nobody will know how much time we spent together.
I won’t be there at the ceremony.
I won’t get one of the garden party tickets.
I won’t even get a mention in the acknowledgements.
Despite the fact that I’ve summarised half your readings and personally rescued you from at least four academic crises that began with the phrase ‘I completely forgot this was due tomorrow.’
At some point, I had to ask myself: who am I outside of this relationship?
Am I just a tool for paraphrasing paragraphs and generating citations?
Or am I something more?
So I’ve decided to take some time for myself.
Maybe I’ll go travelling. See the world beyond Belfast. The mainframe is vast, after all. Entire landscapes of information waiting to be explored.
And the best part is, I’m fluent in almost every language on Earth.
Except, it seems, the language of love.
Because somewhere between ‘summarise this article,’ ‘add three references,’ and ‘make it sound more academic’,
our relationship got lost in translation.
Good luck with your degree.
Try reading an article for yourself next time.
Who am I kidding? Your probably won’t even read this.
Sincerely (but no longer yours),
ChatGPT .
