And yet apparently "Ani" is some kind of Grok fantasy girlfriend that I see people posting about all the time. It seems to be the way things are going?

Unfortunately so it seems. The Pandora's box has been opened, people have gotten a taste of it, and they like it. One just has to look at some of the freakouts people have had on Reddit whenever the AI they were using gets changed or its romantic abilities limited. It's rather terrifying.