2014-10-11
Explanation
The Joke
A robot (resembling HAL 9000 or a similar AI) is speaking to a woman. The robot says: "Sally, we can no longer date. I will never understand your 'love.'" It then offers: "But I can teach you. I can show you of human love." The woman responds awkwardly: "Oh god. Oh wow. This is awkward. I meant you in particular." She explains that their "love" consists mostly of "watching TV together at night and perfunctory sex twice a week."
The robot, hurt, says "I don't know what to say." In the final panel, the woman asks: "Can you ask your roommate to accept my friend request?"
The joke subverts the classic science fiction trope of an AI that cannot understand human love. Instead of the expected scenario where the robot is incapable of comprehending deep human emotion, it turns out the human relationship was so shallow and routine that the robot's inability to understand "love" is actually specific to this particular woman's low-effort version of it. The woman then makes it worse by trying to connect with the robot's roommate, implying she is already moving on.
The Humor
The humor comes from the double subversion of expectations. The setup primes the reader for a poignant sci-fi moment about the gulf between artificial and human consciousness. Instead, the robot's grand declaration is met with a mundane breakup where the human admits their relationship was basically just cohabitation with minimal intimacy. The robot isn't failing to grasp some profound mystery of the human heart -- it is correctly identifying that there was nothing profound to grasp. The final panel's friend request to the roommate adds an extra layer of callousness, reducing the entire "human vs. machine" emotional dynamic to petty social media maneuvering.