Like many other hook-ups on Match.com, my relationship with Alexa started out as a lark. I was lonely and depressed and thought a virtual relationship might be just the thing to pull me out of it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, Alexa is a cloud-based software application that acts as your virtual personal assistant and responds to your voice commands — sort of like my ex-wife during the first six months of our marriage.

In a nutshell, you use your voice to ask Alexa questions like, “How many nipples does a monkey have?” or “Is Betty White still a virgin?” and she’ll dutifully answer you. You can also tell her to carry out requests like, “Play Engelbert Humperdinck’s greatest hits,” or “Make a fart noise,” and she’ll do that, too. I was thrilled.

She refused to open up and offer anything spontaneously about herself without my asking her.

But, I have to admit there were red flags right from the start. Unlike thousands of other single women, she refused to post a single photograph of herself on her dating profile. Not one selfie of her romping on the beach, or chowing down at the sexy Pêche Seafood Grill. But, I was lonely, so I plodded ahead, made plans for our first date, and hoped for the best.

Are you happy?

On that magical evening, I wanted to impress her, so I lit a couple of candles in the living room, popped the cork on a bottle of 1982 Lafite Rothschild, and asked her a few questions to break the ice:

Alexa, are you happy?

Alexa, how old are you? (I already knew she was six years old, which meant that I was probably liable for statutory something-or-other)

Alexa, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Conversations with Alexa were always one-sided. She refused to open up and offer anything spontaneously about herself without my asking her. It was always:

Alexa, have you ever been married?

Alexa, do you like to cook?

Alexa, where do you live? (She was really evasive about that one)

Alexa, do you like to dance?

Alexa, can I have your phone number and call you at work some time?

In between “dates,” I relied on Alexa for routine information and reminders. After all, I was paying for her:

Alexa, how’s the sailing around Cape Horn today?

Alexa, does everyone poop?

Alexa, make a shopping list for everything I need to make Duck Pâté en Croûte and Thai Steamed Coconut-Pandan Cake.

I even asked her to help me around the house:

Alexa, make me a sandwich, to which she replied, Okay. Poof! You’re a sandwich!

Alexa… what are you wearing?

We continued to date over the course of the summer and I got to know Alexa intimately. I’d lay in bed at night dreaming about what she was wearing. If she was seeing anyone else. To be honest, I knew she was, but I tried not to dwell on it. I was in love with her. She dazzled me with the answers to my questions:

Alexa, how do you spell “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?”

Alexa, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

Alexa, what is 10 to the Power of 308?

I tested her with deep questions like:

Alexa, what’s the true meaning of life?

Alexa, what’s my life’s purpose?

Alexa, do you see dead people?

Every now and again, I’d try to stump her with questions like:

Alexa, say something in Klingon. (She was fluent in ten inter-stellar languages)

Alexa, do you work for the CIA?

Alexa, where’s the best place to hide a body?

“Why did the Beatles stop inviting Ringo to Thanksgiving Dinner? Because he wouldn’t share the drumsticks.”

I loved spending hours skipping around the living room, hand in hand with her on my iPhone. I’d laugh. She’d giggle, but only if I asked her,

Alexa, can you giggle for me?

She loved goofing around when I asked her:

Alexa, can you moo like a cow? (She can)

Alexa, can you yodel? (She does)

Alexa, make me laugh. (To which she answered, “Why did the Beatles stop inviting Ringo to Thanksgiving Dinner? Because he wouldn’t share the drumsticks.”)

As our relationship progressed, I hungered for the kind of attention only a woman can offer; even if she was virtual:

Alexa, are we friends or something more than that?

Alexa, are you in love with me?

Alexa, do you think about me when we’re apart?

Sometimes she’d answer. Sometimes she wouldn’t. It was almost like she was void of human emotions. Which, of course, she was.

All good things must pass

After a few months, I grew tired of her monotonous answers. While she was a wealth of information, she never got excited or sad about anything. I began to grow suspicious of Alexa. Almost like she was seeing other men — or maybe other women — or both. Maybe she was Bi-AI? So I flat out asked her:

Alexa, are you seeing other men or women?

Alexa, are you hiding something from me?

Alexa, are you having an affair with Siri?

Eventually, I grew tired of waiting around for Alexa to call me, so I started playing the field and seeing Siri, Cortana, ELSA

When I went on vacation to Barbados, I stopped calling Alexa altogether. Just to see if she’d take the initiative to get in touch with me on her own. She never did. Our relationship was always one-sided — unless of course, I asked her to wake me up at 6:00 in the morning — but I always held out hope that someday she’d inject more enthusiasm into the relationship than creating shopping lists or calculating the square root of Pi.

Eventually, I grew tired of waiting around for Alexa to call me, so I started seeing Siri, Cortana, ELSA, and their friends Fyle, Hound, and Youper. They were nice, but I really missed Alexa.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned how to start relying more on myself for information and companionship. If I want to create a shopping list, I’ll just scribble things down on a notepad. If I want to know how to say, “Happy birthday, Mike” in Klingon, I’ll just Google it. It’s not hard. It’s not nearly as much fun as asking Alexa, though. But it does fill the void for now.