As the music started to die down, I took a moment to reflect. I was still struggling to reconcile how to respond to this new form of introduction. It bothered me, but I knew it wasn’t something I would lose sleep over - it was simply a question of little consequence. It itched at my curiosity though, in the way a sharp pain might jolt you out of an ennui, a tired arrogance that told you knew everything about life, inviting you to inspect the world a bit deeper.

In one of my first months in Fiji, there was a Peace Corps training about attending to conundrums of these types - a guide for navigating cultural behaviors. Using the visual aid of an iceberg with most of its landmass submerged underwater, our instructor suggested that human behavior is the same way; one’s reasoning is often hidden. Using the acronym DIVE, we were given instruction on how to process new interactions:

D: Describe

I: Investigate

V: Validate

E: Evaluate

Emphasized was the V, Validate. If you hop from Investigate directly into Evaluate, without first finding a trusted community member to Validate your findings, you are removing the V from DIVE, changing the acronym to DIE. It’s a hilariously macabre analogy, especially for an organization called the “Peace Corps,” but nonetheless it is a helpful mnemonic. 

I didn’t have any satisfying answers as to why a Stranger wanted others to do my introduction for me, but my first instinct was that it had something to do with fear and discomfort. Talking to a foreigner might be like a sort of culture shock - reversed, diminished, and concentrated. It would be as if you hopped onto a full bus and there was an alien sitting in the back - one of those green, wide-eyed, weird-looking things. Even if you know what an alien looks like, you’ve seen some on TV and you know they visit Earth on holiday sometimes, you haven’t actually met or talked to many, especially in this part of the world. You look around, but the only spot left is next to the alien. There isn’t much time to think - the bus stops only for a second and, as it moves again, the torque of first gear lunges you forward. You traverse down the thin aisle of strangers, bumping legs, stepping on feet, and, resolved to your fate, reluctantly go to take your seat next to the alien. 

Now, you have no idea what the alien is thinking. You don’t even know how the alien thinks. Subconsciously, over the course of your entire lifetime, your brain has constructed a model to predict what and how other people are thinking, what psychologists call a “theory of mind.” Taken into the theory of mind is all of the interactions you have ever had and the entire range of emotion that you have personally experienced. What comes out is a host of assumptions regarding people’s actions, thoughts, and beliefs - a sort of story produced by the machine that is your mind. Over the course of your life, this theory of mind is fine-tuned. With each new augmentation, the brain is able to better predict reality and give you an expectation of how to react. When you do A, people are likely to respond with B.

Except, you’ve never interacted with aliens before. For all you know, you could do A, and they will react with Z, but instead of “Zee,” it's pronounced “Zed.” It would be like if you turned around right now and all of the furniture in your room was upside down. It would be disorienting. But here they are, a genuine alien, and you have no idea what you’re in for.