He Answered Every Joke Seriously. Then He Joined the Bit.
Mateo kept meeting jokes with sincerity, and the chats kept flattening out. Then Greta warned him about her bird, and for once he didn't reach for an honest answer.
Fair warning, I come with a cockatiel who has a documented history of screaming at men. I think I'm legally required to disclose that.
Understood. Does he do interviews, or is it more of a surprise inspection situation?
He'd want the interview. He's extremely into procedure.
Then I'll prepare properly. What's his name, so I don't lose this on a technicality.
Duncan. He responds best to 'sir'.
Duncan, sir. I'm free Tuesday and I'll bring references.
“Understood. Does he do interviews, or is it more of a surprise inspection situation?”
- first dateCoffee, then the interview
She brought him back to meet Duncan. The screaming lasted four minutes and then stopped, which she says has never happened.
- month threeThe bit outlived the joke
Duncan got a formal performance review, written by Mateo, taped to the cage. Greta kept it.
- month eightHe moved his desk in
Under protest from one party. Duncan has since accepted him as staff.
- nowTwo humans, one difficult bird
The review is still on the fridge. Duncan is still, technically, sir.
“I used to think being sincere was the safe move. Someone jokes, you answer straight, nobody gets hurt. But she wasn't asking a question. She was opening a door and waiting to see if I'd walk through it.”
Mateo was a good listener and a terrible audience. Every joke a match made, he answered like it was a customer service ticket. She'd say something absurd about her roommate and he'd reply with a thoughtful paragraph about roommates. He wasn't being dull on purpose. He thought he was being present.
The chats went the way chats go when only one person is playing. Not badly. Just flat, the way a room goes quiet when someone explains a joke that was already working.
The warning that wasn't really a warning
Greta opened with a disclosure. A cockatiel, a documented history of screaming at men, something about being legally required to mention it. Old Mateo had a whole response queued up: he liked animals, he'd grown up with a parrot, birds were smarter than people gave them credit for. All true. All completely beside the point.
Instead he read it again and noticed she'd used the word legally. She was doing a bit. She was doing it alone, and she had been for four messages.
"Understood. Does he do interviews, or is it more of a surprise inspection situation?"
He hit send and immediately assumed he'd been too silly. Her reply came back in ninety seconds, in character, deadpan, raising him: he'd want the interview, he's extremely into procedure. They stayed in that world for two days before either of them said anything sincere.
Playing along is a form of listening
Answering a joke honestly looks like attention, but it's usually the opposite — it takes what she offered and hands it back changed into something safer. Joining the bit says you saw exactly what she was doing and you're willing to be a little ridiculous with her. That's the actual signal. Not the wit. The willingness.
It's the read that's easy to miss at 11pm when you're staring at a message and trying not to say the wrong thing, and it's the kind of thing hintder is decent at catching — that she's not asking, she's playing. The line still has to leave your thumbs. Mateo sent his, badly certain it was too much.
Duncan screamed at him for four minutes on the first visit and then, inexplicably, stopped. Greta says that's the part nobody believes. Mateo says the bird just respects a man who came prepared.
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