Ask Lucas: I just started dating someone who isn’t on social media. Is that a red flag?

Dear Lucas: I recently started to date again, and things have been going well so far. However, when I tried looking her up on social media, nothing came up. I asked her about it, and she said she is not on social media because she doesn’t want to be. Is that a red flag?

Dear Reader: You’ve seen her face, right? Like, in person?

Congrats, you have survived being “catfished,” which is when someone online – sometimes just a robot – pretends to be somebody else.

Your knee-jerk reaction might be to assume she avoids social media because she has a sketchy past, and leaving less of a digital footprint makes it slightly harder for debt collectors, mafiosos or federal agents to track her down.

I think something else is afoot. As AI devours an increasing portion of social media – and by extension everyday life – perhaps she recognizes AI for what it is, the terminal manifestation of corporate greed, a fundamental hostility to the human condition, a hatred of nature and life itself.

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Maybe she just doesn’t want to share every detail of her life.

The best way to get to know people is to interact with them.

Next time you’re out on a date, “drop” your phone on the ground and watch the reaction on her face. If she helps you pick it up or otherwise reacts mildly, then you can infer she’s off social media because she’s defrauding credit card companies or hates paying taxes (she’s a keeper).

However, if you drop your phone and a flash of glee comes across her face – an expression of joy known only among warriors who fell great enemies in the civilizational war between humans and their cybernetic offspring – you’ll know you have a revolutionary on your hands (also a keeper).

If the latter is true, you have a lot to talk about, and you also will have ideas for future dates. Instead of going to the movies or eating overpriced spaghetti, you can antagonize our technological overlords.

Take a tour of Google’s headquarters and microwave fermented herring in its office kitchen. Rub Cheeto dust all over the keyboards of its workers.

If a trip to Google’s headquarters (1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy., Mountain View, CA) is out of your budget, you still have options.

Pour several cans of creamed corn into a cardboard box and mail it to Elon Musk as vengeance for him developing the Grok AI system. Send Mark Zuckerberg, whose crimes are too numerous to list, a live lizard to let him know we’re onto his secret identity.

If she’s down for all this hoopla, you’re going to have a lot of fun, but you will also have to accept these are not her most egregious shenanigans.

Maybe she does have a few skeletons and one or two corpses in her closet.

At least she’s not a robot.

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Look at this handsome fella. His name is Lucas and he will be writing more columns like this, despite common sense saying this should stop while he’s ahead. If you want to send hate mail or, for some reason, ask for his advice, please send an email to ldaprile@cleveland.com.