Correspondence Regarding Portfolio Conversation Dodge
Someone asked how the crypto thing was going. The answer was a question about dinner plans.
OFFICIAL APPLICATION Re: Formal Recognition of Portfolio Conversation Dodge as Accepted Communication Practice Submitted November 2022
To: The Relevant Authority From: The Subject of Record Re: Recognition of the portfolio conversation dodge as a legitimate conversational instrument in the current market environment
Background
The applicant was an early participant in a category of assets whose performance, as of November 2022, constitutes information the applicant prefers not to summarize in social settings. The assets were acquired at a price significantly higher than their current value. The difference between the acquisition price and the current price is a number the applicant knows exactly and states to no one.
The Specific Mechanism
Portfolio conversation dodge is deployed at the moment someone asks, in a casual register, how the applicant's investments are doing, or how that crypto thing is going, or whether the applicant has been following what's happening with the market.
The response is a subject change. The subject change is immediate and offered as though the applicant simply found the new topic more pressing. Common substitute topics include the food, the weather, a news event not related to markets, and in one documented instance, a question about whether anyone had seen a particular film.
The Contradiction
The check cannot change the price, yet it changes the person's mood as if an action occurred. The applicant checks the price approximately four times per day, privately. Each check confirms information the applicant already has. The mood following the check is different from the mood before it, in a direction that varies.
The applicant does not wish to report this price or this mood to others. This preference is reasonable and does not require justification.
The Governing Rule
Uncertainty may be converted into certainty by checking the same number again under identical conditions. This rule has been applied repeatedly. The conditions are identical. The number changes slightly, in one direction, consistently.
Consequence
After repetition, other people begin adjusting their behavior around portfolio conversation dodge. Two friends have stopped asking. They have not announced that they stopped. They simply no longer ask. The applicant has not raised this. The subject does not come up.
Eventually portfolio conversation dodge acquires an unwritten enforcement system that everyone denies creating. The applicant's social circle has collectively arrived at a policy of not asking. The policy was not agreed upon. It was arrived at through the consistent outcome of asking.
Application Request
The applicant requests formal recognition that the portfolio conversation dodge serves a social function that benefits all parties and should be treated as a standard conversational feature of the November 2022 period rather than an evasion.
The number is down. No further information is requested.
Status
Application submitted. The market is doing what it is doing. The dinner was good.