PROTOCOL 03 – PUBLIC RESEARCH DIVISION
The Cold Start Protocol
First date questions that aren't an interview
- Materials
- two subjects, low stakes, one exit each (unused, ideally)
- Objective
- Initiate a reaction between two people with no shared history without making either one feel like they're applying for a mortgage.
Procedure
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Ban the résumé questions for the first thirty minutes: job, siblings, where-are-you-from. They can re-enter later as free radicals; they cannot start the reaction.
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Deploy instead, in any order:
- What's the most recent small thing that made you irrationally happy?
- What do you do extremely well that has no market value whatsoever?
- What opinion do you hold with total confidence and zero expertise?
- What's the best meal you've ever had standing up?
- Who in your life would be most surprised you're on this date, and why?
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When any answer surprises you, say "wait, go back" and follow it. The follow-up is worth five fresh questions. This is the entire skill.
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End the session while at least one thread is unfinished. An open loop is the correct final state for a first trial.
Expected results
Laughter within eleven minutes (median, our observations). If the résumé questions never re-enter at all, note that. It means the reaction found better fuel.
Findings worth keeping? Some of what surfaces in a protocol – the story, the detail they'd be embarrassed you noticed – is exactly the raw material the synthesis division turns into a finished song about them. The Lab merely notes the pipeline exists.
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