The new season of Black Mirror opens slow. There’s a club scene. There’s a couple and a friend who we’ve established is also their roommate. Having watched the last few seasons of black mirror, I waited to see what would happen- Were they suspended in some other reality? Was someone secretly a holograph?
All they did was dance and go home to have steamy sex (we know it was steamy because it wasn't in a bed) and then the guys stayed up all night playing a video game.
Now they are in the future and girlfriend is now wife with a much better weave, she looks hot tbh. Husband still looks terrible with his bad haircut, but now he’s also wearing daddy clothes and grilling meat and looking at the butt crack of one of the guests. He’s also 38. Hilarious because 38 is really not that old, but Hollywood likes to play like it’s 60. He tries to talk to other dads but it just doesn’t click. It is exactly the way Hollywood likes to portray marriage, deeply boring and unsatisfying. Friend shows up with a better haircut and has an awkward conversation with husband and gives him his gift- a reboot of the game they played so lovingly together all those years ago. They loosen up and start to talk about waxing balls- haha?
By now, we are basically 15 minutes in with no technology. The first sign of futuristic technology is a voice controlled dishwasher.
Husband and Friend are in that moment, in their separate lives, uninspired by their sex lives. Husband is playing online Tetris when he gets an invitation from Friend to play. They start their fighting game as the same characters they always used to pick but this time the game is enhanced by VR and real life touch. After enjoying testing out the feeling of punches, Friend (a female character) kisses Husband (a male character) in the game. Although Friend makes the first move, as he’s clearly wanted to the whole game, Husband throws himself into the kiss, until guilt breaks him away and he exits the game with a real life boner that he takes to bed to his real life wife.
The next night, Husband starts the game with the disclaimer “I can’t play long, I was drunk last time” insert side eye emoji Friend is like “oh sure, same”. It’s the language of people who are about to engage in something they shouldn’t. This time, there’s no hesitation, they get right to it. Afterwards, they talk about if it’s a gay thing, “it doesn't feel gay” Husband says before his son kicks him in real life and he has to exit the game. When his wife comes home, he pretends to be asleep, is it guilt or avoidance or a little bit of both.
Now that Pandora’s box has been open, they are having virtual sex every night and their real lives are consumed too. Husband can’t get it up for his wife, Friend can’t finish with his girlfriend. This isn’t just some virtual tryst they are having. After putting on virtual clothes post virtual sex, they lay down and they talk. Friend describes having sex in a female body as “the whole damn orchestra”. Husband and Wife go out for dinner on their wedding anniversary and Wife cries as she asks why he doesn’t want her anymore.
“I tried fucking their computer controlled characters, it’s bullshit, it’s like a rubber doll, they are not programmed for any sex stuff, they just sort of lie there”
The guilt sets in and he gives up the game. Friend is going crazy and refuses to let go. He tries to negotiate with Husband- “its not cheating”, “its not real” “its like porn”, what about if we only do it on the first Sunday of each month. Husband has made up his mind and refuses to negotiate. Husband is now back to bonding with his family and Friend is going crazy, until Wife invites Friend for dinner, and Husband’s avoidance tactics have to come to an end.
As they virtual kissed post the most intense virtual sex they had ever had, Friend whispered “I love you.”
you’re feeling it too, just say it
Husband angrily suggests that they should meet up in real life and he suggests that they kiss. They give each other a dry peck and feel nothing.
As far as I’m concerned, the idea that they would meet up, peck and know there are no sparks is bullshit. Sparks are funny, intimacy is funny, it doesn’t always respond to that kind of pressure/expectation. Haven’t you ever had a crush and the first kiss was meh, because there was all this build up to it, but then the like 4th kiss ends up being magical.
I know a big question in this episode that even the characters asked themselves was “is it a gay thing?’ . First, I think very rarely are people either gay or straight. Second, I feel like male friendship is such an interesting thing, there’s so much closeness without the intimacy and I feel like in this show, they were able to examine that intimacy in albeit an extreme way. For women, that intimacy might have been explored over time by holding hands and hugging and drunken I love you kisses- physical contact in a way men don’t have in their friendships. That also probably has something to do with friend feeling more relaxed and comfortable in his semi-virtual female self. When you’re an anxious person, it makes sense to continually look for ways to escape yourself. This is the perfect form of escape. You’re you, but you’re not you. In a way, developing a societally acceptable closeness with your friend in a semi-virtual world where you can both just be is an addictive idea.