YOU can hop on the bus, slip out the back or make a new plan.
Or... you can download a new app and let the cold, brutal touch of technology do it for you.
Last week there were 50 ways to leave your lover. This week, make that 51.
Binder, a portmanteau of Binned Her, does your dirty work for you. I say "dirty work" because what's putting something in the bin other than dirty work? Other than unclean, unpleasant work. Which is exactly how you hope the object of your affections and care will view you: as something to be casually discarded, in a bin. Binder will send your ex-girlfriend a text message ("It's like I'm living in some sort of unwakeable nightmare") and then a voicemail to let her know she's suddenly single. The app then washes your hands for you. There is as yet no technology to leave you morally spotless.
The developers claim it's just a joke. So, if it's just for the lols and no one's going to use it, what's the point?
Let's leave aside the hugely questionable decision to only release a male-to-female version of the app while the female-to-male - Bindim - is still a work in progress... actually, let's not. What's the joke? Is the joke that men are such heartless curs they cannot do the decent thing and look a woman in the eye while dumping her? Hoho, men: they're all horrors. Or is simply generally amusing to casually disregard another person's feelings?
When the press release for this app landed in my inbox last Friday, I hoped to goodness no one would pick it up. No such luck: it's been on Fox News and, my favourite, the New Yorker. What a let down.
Humanity can't be trusted with "jokes". There are those who will not realise that Binder is designed to be cruelly amusing.
There are those who will form a romantic relationship with another person and then think it chortlesome to dump them by machine. Don't facilitate this, Binder-makers. Don't enable low level human meanness.
In response, I have developed an app. Alright, I haven't developed it - I've just thought a little bit about it. But I believe it fills a gaping hole in the market.
It's an app that gives people advice on how to be kind to other people. If you feel confused about your next move towards your loved one, simply open the app and on your smartphone screen will appear a picture of me, shouting my full-proof guide to life: "Don't be a dick."
My face, shouting "Don't be a dick," over and over until non-dickery is achieved.
Binder spells the end of humanity. I hope its creators have their hearts irreparably broken. I hope they end up living in some sort of unwakeable nightmare.
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