Original sin. That’s when we started to like scary things

We had realised something was amiss a while back. All of a sudden, we had taken a fancy to avocados, for no particular reason. One day they did not exist, and the next day they were everywhere – even the supermarkets in every county were swamped with them, to the point where people started feeling them with their thumbs, pressing into the skin and learning to pick the ones that were just ripe enough. The avocado. A green, mushy-textured ball that tastes like very bland pine nuts. In short, not exactly a must-have fruit. ‘But it’s good for your health!’ they said. Exotic, imported fats. So we were bound to like it.

Perhaps that’s where we started to take a liking to a whole host of strange things, and when they weren’t strange, they were pathetic. And so far, who cares, you might say. The problem is that the strange things have run out, the pathetic ones have dwindled, and the number of crazy things – the ones that are scary – is starting to grow. We like egg-white omelettes. I find cartons in the fridge section, just like milk cartons, and the label says they contain egg white. People with a fixation on this stuff whip it up with Parmesan and fry it in a pan. Then they eat it. They say it’s to stay in shape and maintain the muscles they’ve built at the gym. I thought we’d hit rock bottom, but then I found egg-white ice cream in the ice-cream aisle too. We prefer certain bran crackers instead of bread that taste like sandpaper. We also like that medicine – semaglutide – in pills or injections that make you feel sick so you don’t eat, and you’re thin, really thin. And you don’t even have to eat the egg-white omelette.

We value maintaining a good physique. A good physique is for looking good on Instagram; it’s no longer about sexual encounters as it once was, because nobody cares about that anymore. Now we like receiving that ‘burning flame’ direct message confirming that we’re cool. We like not seeing each other. We like staying in our own homes. We like the sofa with nobody around. We like to say that all relationships are toxic, except for the one between Zendaya Stoermer Coleman and Tom Holland, who got married in secret and are everyone’s ideal couple. We absolutely love Zendaya and Tom: oh, how well those two hide from the parasocial relationships of their obsessed followers. And they balance on a tightrope: respectful and never too affectionate in public. We like famous couples to be as we say: love, yes, but it must be implied; it must be love without flaunting it. They mustn’t argue; they mustn’t split up. But above all: this love must never allow for a single moment of distraction or a lack of reverence on his part towards her. We’ve always loved things that don’t exist, when it comes to relationships.

We enjoy watching "Temptation Island" with a sense of irony. And, of course, a sense of socio-hierarchical superiority.

We appreciate individuals who attend therapy. Only those who go to therapy – the rest are likely all arseholes. Actually, definitely.

We like to be happy; in fact, we’ve become so fixated on this happiness that now, faced with a bit of perfectly normal, structural sadness, it feels as though we’re dying. We like books about misfortune, bitter events in general. We like to cry and say that we’ve cried – always on Instagram.

We prefer to work entirely remotely: just leave me at home, on my own, and avoid phone calls that could have been emails. We appreciate artificial intelligence for everything. For work emails, but especially in the evenings on the sofa, we like to tell it about our troubles and ask for advice. Could it be all that avocado that’s done us in?