Jean

It's Friday evening. My laptop screen glows in the dark, my tea is cooling on the table, and my soul is heavy with sadness—everything interesting this week has passed me by. I'm scrolling through my feed out of boredom, and then a voice inside me whispers, "Why not?"

Five minutes later, I created an account: "Alisa, 18, student." The photo was neural network-generated, cute—a brunette with wheat-colored hair. Just for fun, to observe the wildlife. And the wildlife didn't keep me waiting.

Alexander was the first to write. He's 60 years old. His profile picture is impressive: a gray-haired man in an expensive coat on the embankment. He has a professorial air.

"A student?" “Yeah... 18,” I answered, mentally grinning. "Darling. Where do you study?"

And so it went. Alexander proved to be a master of conversation: he asked about the session, told me about his business trips to Paris. He spoke with intelligence, with European charm. I was completely captivated. We chatted for two hours.

I turned on a full-length film: I invented Alice's doctor mother, her cat Boris, and her love for Heidegger. Alexander played along masterfully.

And then something went wrong. The conversation turned to jazz, he recommended an album, and I blurted out, on behalf of Alice: — Oh, isn't that the one that was recently reissued on vinyl? They say the mastering is excellent.

A pause. And then came the answer: "Okay, I give up. You've figured me out, bro. I'm not Alexander. My name is Jean. I'm 24. I decided to mess with the old guys by creating a profile as my father. You're way too good at vinyl for an eighteen-year-old humanities major."

I was dumbfounded, and then burst out laughing. Professor Alexander turned out to be twenty-four-year-old Jean, living in the same Khrushchev-era apartment. We were both playing roles: I was a naive student, he was a sophisticated businessman. Two of a kind.

I typed in a reply: "Jean, you're a genius! I'm not Alice either. I'm sitting in my underwear, drinking tea and laughing. You made me into your vinyl."

The answer came instantly: "I knew it! This is the best conversation of my life. I spent half an hour on Wikipedia to answer about Heidegger!"

We exchanged contact information. Zhana's profile picture was of a shaggy guy with a guitar. It turned out he was a sound engineer and had created the profile after a fight with his girlfriend. We talked until three in the morning.

Jean's appearance, glimpsed briefly on his profile picture after the revelation, was completely at odds with the image of the respectable "Alexander." Instead of a well-groomed, gray-haired man, it was Jean who stared out of the screen. His tousled blond hair fell over his forehead, as if he'd just run in or, conversely, rubbed his eyes open after a nap. On his nose were comical glasses with thick black frames, which he seemed to wear solely to project the image of a "smart guy." His eyes were lively, slightly squinted, with a constant twinkle of amusement, even when he was serious. A guitar slung over his shoulder looked as if it had survived fire, water, and several unsuccessful concerts in underground passages.

This is the appearance of a person who doesn’t care about the opinion of the majority, but who still wants to be the center of attention.