Two things in life I hate - one is technology, the other is

Host: The café was dimly lit, tucked away on a narrow side street where the city’s noise softened into whispers. Rain streaked the windowpanes, each drop tracing a crooked line down the glass like a thought that had lost its way. The air was thick with the smell of roasted coffee and the faint ozone of old electronics — a laptop charging in the corner, its small green light blinking like a taunt.

At the corner table sat Jack, glaring at his phone as if it had personally betrayed him. His grey eyes reflected the dull glow of the screen; his fingers hovered above it in resignation rather than intent. Across from him, Jeeny sipped from her cup, calm, observing — her dark hair tied loosely, her expression patient and quietly amused.

Outside, the neon sign flickered in red and blue, its reflection bleeding across their table like a pulse.

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Gregg Wallace once said, ‘Two things in life I hate — one is technology, the other is forms. I just have an aversion to them.’”

Jack: (snorts) “Finally, a man who speaks my language.”

Jeeny: (laughs softly) “You? The same man who sleeps next to three screens and a Wi-Fi router?”

Jack: (grimacing) “Those are tools, not choices. Technology’s like bureaucracy now — necessary evil. Forms with flashing lights.”

Jeeny: (leans forward) “Maybe the problem isn’t technology. Maybe it’s control — the idea that something else is scripting your rhythm.”

Jack: (smirks) “And you say I sound poetic.”

Host: The rain outside quickened, drumming against the glass in restless syncopation. The light flickered again, and in that pulsing glow, Jack’s face looked older, carved by resistance and fatigue. Jeeny’s, in contrast, seemed softer — like someone who had made peace with the inevitability of progress.

Jack: (sighs, pushing his phone away) “You know what I miss? Simplicity. When things just… worked. When people wrote letters instead of completing digital forms that ask you for the same damn name three times.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “You’re not nostalgic, Jack. You’re allergic to repetition.”

Jack: “And to anything that thinks it knows me better than I do.”

Jeeny: “You mean like an algorithm?”

Jack: (grins) “Exactly. Machines pretending they understand what I want. I don’t even understand what I want most days.”

Host: She smiled at that — the kind of smile that said she’d been there too. The steam from her coffee rose between them like a soft veil, blurring their outlines. Outside, a car horn sounded distantly, then faded back into the rhythm of the rain.

Jeeny: (after a pause) “You ever wonder why forms bother people so much?”

Jack: (frowns) “Because they turn life into boxes. Questions that don’t fit real people. ‘Married or single?’ — as if that’s the only story there is.”

Jeeny: (gently) “You don’t hate forms, Jack. You hate being defined.”

Jack: (leans back, thoughtful) “Maybe. But isn’t that what technology’s doing now — defining us faster than we can define ourselves?”

Jeeny: “Or reflecting what we’re too scared to admit.”

Jack: (laughs dryly) “You really think a screen shows truth?”

Jeeny: (quietly) “No. But it shows what people want to be true.”

Host: Her voice carried that calm certainty that always made him pause — that subtle way she dismantled his walls without raising her own. He picked up the phone again, stared at it as if weighing whether to argue or surrender.

Jack: (softly) “You know what scares me? Not that technology’s taking over. But that we’re letting it. Happily. Because it saves us from boredom, from silence — from ourselves.”

Jeeny: (sets her cup down) “Maybe that’s not surrender. Maybe that’s evolution. Humanity’s always built things to extend itself — fire, language, tools. Technology’s just the latest limb.”

Jack: (dryly) “Yeah, except this limb tells me what to think and when to eat.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Only if you give it that power.”

Host: The light outside flashed again — a passing car reflected in the wet street, slicing through the quiet like an accidental metaphor. Inside, the air buzzed faintly from a phone notification neither of them checked.

Jack: (grinning wryly) “You ever notice how technology always promises to simplify life but ends up complicating it?”

Jeeny: (shrugs) “That’s not technology’s fault. It’s ours. We built it to fill the voids we couldn’t face. The machine didn’t make us needy — it just made need visible.”

Jack: (with a bitter laugh) “So you’re saying it’s a mirror?”

Jeeny: (nods) “Exactly. You hate it because it shows you the parts of yourself that can’t sit still.”

Host: The rain softened, a quieter rhythm now — not insistence, but reflection. The sound seemed to synchronize with her words, each drop a punctuation mark to their conversation. Jack’s fingers drummed against the table, slower now, as if his mind had caught on a thread of her meaning.

Jack: (softly) “I still hate it, though.”

Jeeny: (smiles) “That’s fine. Hate keeps you human. Aversion is just awareness dressed in irritation.”

Jack: (chuckles) “You’d make a great therapist.”

Jeeny: (playfully) “I’d rather be a mirror.”

Jack: (leans forward, teasing) “So I can see all my faults?”

Jeeny: (gently) “No. So you can see how alive you still are when you resist.”

Host: A small silence bloomed between them — not awkward, but contemplative. The kind of pause that lets truth settle without needing applause. Outside, the clouds began to break, a faint streak of moonlight spilling across the rain-damp street.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe Gregg Wallace was right — maybe hating technology isn’t about rebellion. Maybe it’s nostalgia for the parts of life that didn’t need permission or passwords.”

Jeeny: (softly) “And maybe forms are just metaphors for how afraid we are of being misunderstood. You can’t fit a life into boxes, Jack. But sometimes you have to fill one out to prove you’re still here.”

Jack: (smiles faintly) “That’s the cruel poetry of modern life.”

Jeeny: (nods) “Exactly. The bureaucracy of existence.”

Host: Her words hung in the air — poetic, practical, painfully true. The café clock ticked, the last sound before the silence returned. Jack looked down at his phone, thumb hovering over the screen again — but this time, not out of frustration. Out of thought.

Host: And as the camera pulled slowly back — the soft glow of the café fading into the night — Gregg Wallace’s simple confession transformed into a quiet parable:

That what we resist most
is often what we fear will replace us.

That technology and forms are not enemies —
but mirrors of our hunger for clarity and our terror of being known.

That our aversion to control
is the last proof of our freedom.

And that the truest rebellion left
is still to pause —
to look up from the screen,
and feel the pulse of the world
that still hums without code.

Host: The final shot —
Jack and Jeeny, sitting in the small pool of lamplight, their reflections blurred in the rain-streaked window.
The street beyond glowing with new silver light.
Two people, still arguing gently, still resisting gently —
proving, perhaps, that resistance itself
is the last human art.