In a brief and deeply questionable moment of maternal devotion (read: mania), I signed up for an online “marketplace” while searching for grain-free pizza for my son.

Marketplace is doing a lot of work here. It’s a supermarket. Let’s not get fancy.

Within approximately four minutes, I realized two things:

1. They had nothing else I wanted.
2. They were planning to automatically fill a cart for me like some kind of overzealous pantry poltergeist.

So naturally, I did what any rational adult would do. I went to cancel immediately. Which was well within my 30-day free trial window, thank you very much.

Enter: The Chatbot.

Now, I have nothing against chatbots in theory. In practice, this one was less “helpful assistant” and more “clingy ex who refuses to accept the breakup.”

I said cancel.

It said are you sure? What if we offer you this? Or this? Or this deeply unnecessary assortment of items you didn’t want five minutes ago?

I said cancel again.

It countered with the emotional resilience of a motivational speaker and the persistence of a telemarketer in 1997.

Six times. It took me SIX TIMES of saying “cancel membership” to actually exit this relationship.

Six.

At that point, it wasn’t a subscription. It was a hostage situation.

And it got me thinking. Why is it so hard to leave things that we entered into so easily? One click in. Twelve negotiations out. A digital obstacle course of “are you really sure you don’t want 10% off kale chips for life?”

Avril Lavigne asked us years ago, “Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?”

And honestly? She was onto something.

Sometimes, I just want to end the relationship. Cleanly. Respectfully. Without a barrage of incentives designed to make me question my own judgment.

No means no. Even in e-commerce.

Let me go. Let me be free. Let me find my grain-free pizza elsewhere without emotional manipulation from a bot named Chad.

We had a moment. It’s over now.

Bye-bye.