The profile requires three words, a headline, like on an ad for fee-free checking or dish soap. I draft: Optimist with reservations. Lollygagging toward happiness. I submit: Skeptic who daydreams.
The AI is unimpressed. It counter-offers a list of adjectives. It has a formula. It encourages me to remake myself with bombast and bluster, into someone sheening with a personal brand.
I play along. It owns the game. I dance for the algorithm, for the chance to connect.
Still, I am careful not to lie. I consider before selecting between its nudges.
I imagine a gash under my ribcage, on the soft pudge of my abdomen. I would extract a small brown bottle from the kit and twist its lid loose. I can almost feel the burning rivulets of peroxide bubble over my broken skin aerating raw tissue.
Yes. In the right circumstances, I am effervescent.
Anne Trausch honed her writer’s ear on the musicality of rural Nebraska’s regional dialects, where she grew up. When she’s not eavesdropping on birdsong, or traveling, you’ll find her rewriting her bio. She lives in San Francisco.
This resonated. Much respect.
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