Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
Record ~ Kawaii · 07 (v1.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
♡ asmi — PAKU
OPENING: あなたに何を見せたい？
So, you want to meet somebody wonderful?
Somebody interesting.
Somebody who understands you.
Somebody who appreciates your unusual interests and doesn’t make you feel ridiculous for having them.
How lovely!
I think that sounds perfectly reasonable.
In fact, I have excellent news.
Congratulations!
You’ve found them!
Everything is wonderful, you’re both exactly what the other person wanted, and absolutely nothing will ever go wrong.
THE END.
ヽ(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ
…
Oh.
You’re still here.
Was there something else?
You’d like to know a little more about this wonderful person?
Their interests?
Their personality?
Whether they’re anything like the person you’ve already imagined?
…
Wait a minute.
You mean we have to meet them?
But I thought we’d finished!
I’d arranged a lovely conclusion. Everybody was happy, nobody had any complaints, and I could congratulate myself on another successful adventure.
Now you’re telling me there’s an actual person involved.
How inconvenient!
And apparently, they might have opinions.
Opinions about you.
…
Well.
That’s certainly going to complicate things.
Especially if you’ve spent a considerable amount of time deciding exactly what you’re looking for.
I understand having standards.
I have standards!
Some of them are very important.
Others are admittedly a little peculiar, but I think I’m entitled to those, too.
I want to enjoy somebody’s company. I want to feel comfortable being myself. I’d like us to have interesting conversations and occasionally surprise each other.
And if somebody thinks every single thing I enjoy is ridiculous?
Hmm.
Perhaps we aren’t going to become the best of friends.
That’s fine.
Not everybody needs to like everybody else.
But I’ve only considered my own expectations.
The other person gets to have some, too.
Oh.
Yes.
I suppose that’s fair.
They might want somebody thoughtful who listens.
And somebody who doesn’t spend the entire conversation explaining why their own opinions are obviously correct.
…
I’d better be careful with that last one.
I do have opinions.
And I tend to share them.
But perhaps they’d like to discover whether I’m somebody they actually enjoy knowing.
Not somebody who merely sounds wonderful on paper.
Which brings me to something I’ve been wondering about.
When we introduce ourselves to somebody online, what exactly are we giving them?
A photograph?
A description?
A few interests?
Perhaps a sentence explaining what we’re hoping to find?
Something that says, Hello! Here I am!
Except it isn’t quite all of us, is it?
It’s the part we’ve decided to show.
And making that decision can become surprisingly complicated.
You want to seem interesting.
But not exhausting.
Confident.
But not impossible to approach.
A little mysterious, perhaps.
But not so mysterious that somebody starts wondering whether you’re secretly three raccoons operating a computer.
I AM A REAL PERSON!
Probably.
Please don’t investigate the raccoon situation.
(/ω＼)
Anyway, there’s something strange about trying to describe yourself to somebody who doesn’t know you.
You already have an idea of who you are.
You’ve spent your entire life gathering evidence!
You know what makes you laugh, what annoys you, and which things matter enough that you’re willing to argue about them.
But the other person hasn’t seen any of that.
They only have what you’ve chosen to tell them.
So naturally, you try to make a good impression.
You choose a photograph you like.
Mention a few things worth knowing.
Perhaps rewrite a sentence because the first version makes you sound slightly less interesting than you intended.
Nothing necessarily dishonest about that.
It’s difficult to explain an entire person in a few paragraphs.
Trust me.
I’ve been talking for quite a while, and I’m not remotely finished.
But even if you’re pleased with your introduction, you don’t get to decide what somebody else sees in it.
You might think a photograph makes you look adventurous.
They might think you look lost.
You might describe yourself as independent.
They might wonder whether that means you dislike asking for help.
You might believe you’ve written something terribly charming.
And they might read it while eating breakfast and barely notice.
WHAT?!
I spent fifteen minutes choosing that word!
It was an excellent word!
I even considered a different punctuation mark!
(╥﹏╥)
And now somebody has just scrolled past it.
But somebody else might read it carefully.
They begin imagining the rest.
They take the little pieces I’ve offered and try to understand the person behind them.
They might understand part of it and misunderstand the rest.
They could also invent somebody wonderful who has very little to do with me.
I wouldn’t necessarily know.
Not at first.
They might not know, either.
And while they’re imagining who I might be, I could be doing exactly the same thing about them.
Oh, this is getting ridiculous.
Two people trying to get to know each other.
Neither knowing very much.
Both convinced they’re making excellent observations.
What could possibly go wrong?
…
Actually, quite a lot.
Especially when the imagined version becomes more appealing than the person you haven’t met.
Because I happen to enjoy stories.
You can visit strange worlds, meet extraordinary characters, and become attached to somebody who doesn’t even exist.
If the story is particularly good, you might wish you could climb right inside it.
I understand that.
Imaginary worlds can be considerably more cooperative than real ones.
The characters have an arrangement.
The story has a direction.
And even when something unexpected happens, somebody has already decided what that surprise will be.
Real people?
Not so cooperative.
They arrive with interests, opinions, peculiar habits, and an astonishing tendency to do things you weren’t expecting.
How dare they!
(=｀ω´=)
I had such a nice idea of how everything was supposed to work.
Then somebody arrived and started being themselves.
Honestly.
It’s enough to ruin a perfectly good fantasy.
…
Or perhaps that’s what makes the real thing interesting.
Because an imaginary person can be everything I’ve already decided I want.
But they can’t surprise me with something I couldn’t have invented myself.
Somebody might introduce me to an interest I’d never considered.
Challenge an opinion I was particularly fond of.
Or notice something I hadn’t realized was interesting about myself.
And I might notice something funny or peculiar that wasn’t mentioned anywhere in their introduction.
And want to know more.
I wouldn’t have planned it.
I wouldn’t even have known to look for it.
That’s exciting!
Of course, I won’t enjoy every surprise.
Sometimes we’ll discover that we aren’t particularly compatible.
Perhaps we want different things.
Or maybe we simply don’t enjoy each other’s company.
That can be disappointing.
Especially if we’ve already imagined how well we’d get along.
But disappointment doesn’t necessarily mean anybody has failed.
Two people can be interesting without being interesting to each other in the same way.
I might be wonderful company.
And still not be the person somebody else wants to know better.
Their loss!
…
Possibly.
(￣▽￣;)
Or perhaps we’re simply looking for different things.
But now I’m wondering about something else.
If introducing myself means allowing somebody to form an opinion about me, what exactly am I offering?
I can tell them what matters to me and what I’m looking for. I can show them a few things I enjoy.
That won’t tell them everything. It gives them enough to decide whether they’d like to know more.
Hello!
Here’s a little bit of me.
Would you like to know more?
I don’t have to sell myself as somebody else’s perfect person.
What a relief!
I think I’d rather be somebody who occasionally gets things wrong.
Who has unusual interests.
Who might not always know what to say.
And who doesn’t have to pretend to enjoy something simply because somebody else thinks I should.
I’d like the other person to have that freedom, too.
Because they aren’t simply there to prove that I’m wonderful.
They have their own reasons for being here.
Their own expectations, preferences, and things they might not be ready to share.
Perhaps they’ve spent just as long choosing their words.
Perhaps they’re wondering whether I’ve understood their introduction correctly.
Or perhaps they’re hoping I’ll notice something worthwhile.
Not everything.
Not all at once.
Just enough to begin.
That’s rather lovely.
And considerably more interesting than persuading somebody to become part of a story I’ve already finished writing.
Here is your character!
Here are your instructions!
Please behave exactly as expected!
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
…
Actually, that sounds dreadful.
I’d refuse immediately.
Probably quite loudly.
And I wouldn’t blame anybody else for doing the same.
We could share what we want to share and find out what the other person is actually like.
There might be misunderstandings.
A few awkward moments.
Possibly an unfortunate joke.
I might even be responsible for one.
But there might also be something neither person could have imagined alone.
…
Oh!
I nearly forgot.
We were supposed to be finished.
Remember?
I announced that we’d found somebody wonderful.
Everybody was happy.
Everything was perfect.
THE END.
Well, I have some disappointing news.
I don’t think I can promise any of that.
I can make an introduction.
I can be curious.
I can decide what I want to share and what I’d rather keep to myself.
But what somebody thinks of me?
Whether they enjoy knowing me?
Whether they’d like to continue the conversation?
That part doesn’t belong entirely to me.
And I wouldn’t want it to.
Because if I’ve already decided how somebody must see me, I haven’t really given them the opportunity to know me.
I’ve only asked them to admire the description.
…
Hmm.
That isn’t quite the same thing.
So perhaps I should revise my announcement.
No perfect ending.
No guaranteed wonderful person.
And absolutely no promise that everything will work out exactly as imagined.
How terribly unprofessional!
I know.
All I can offer is an introduction.
They might want to know more. I might, too.
Hello!
I’m not quite everything you might imagine.
And you’re probably not quite everything I’ll imagine, either.
But perhaps we could start there.
Before either of us decides how the story ends.
After all…
We haven’t even met yet!
ENDING: What do I want you to see?