In a story out of Ann Arbor, MI, Michelle Tonyan had her new boyfriend shadow her previous one for a few days until he got caught up to speed with the day-to-day operations of his role in their relationship.
“This is all part of my new boyfriend orientation that I’ve implemented to optimize the ‘getting to know me’ part of the process,” said Tonyan. “It’s also a great chance to ask questions, gain hands-on experience, and most importantly learn that I have IBS and how to best handle how much I talk about that.”
“Do my exes like being followed around by a complete stranger asking questions about someone who broke up with them months ago for extremely petty reasons? Absolutely not,” Tonyan added. “But that’s all part of the agreement they signed before going on date number three with me at the time. A deal’s a deal and training is only three days, anyway.”
Boyfriend-in-training Graham Braxton was surprised by this practice, but seemed impressed at its overall efficacy.
“This is without a doubt the smoothest onboarding process I’ve ever experienced in a relationship,” said Braxton before checking over all the handwritten notes he’s already jotted down. “It’s only been one day of shadowing and despite not seeing Michelle at all, I already feel like we’ve been dating for several years thanks to everything I’m learning from her ex, Kevin.”
“Before Michelle, I had absolutely no idea how to get to know a new girlfriend,” he continued. “It’s not like you can just ask someone what the most challenging parts of being with them are. Honestly, I’m starting to think that every relationship should have a third-party mentor or at least some sort of buddy system.”
Experts predict that this could be the future of relationship management.
“Optimizing every bit and piece of your life is extremely popular right now,” said couples therapist Lucille Walten. “So it only makes sense that automating the early and somewhat clumsy stage of a relationship would be next.”
“I mean, you wouldn’t want to be a year or two in and then find out your partner is dead-set on naming their child Atticus,” Walten added. “Better to hear these things from someone else familiar with the situation right from the start rather than from your significant other way down the line when you’re locked into a marriage.”
In related news, Tonyan rolled out a new plan to outsource all future breakups with boyfriends to avoid the guilt of straight up ghosting them.
