On Perfection

Humans, as a rule, do not trust perfection. We do not trust the easy way out. We do not respect those born into money; we love the “poor to rich” stories. If we actually meet the “perfect” mate, we assume there’s something deeply wrong on a fundamental level. (I watched an episode of Kim Possible with my daughter and when Kim found the perfect boyfriend – cute, interesting, engaging with her friends, dying to take her to the prom – my first thought was, “Oh, he’s so evil. Just wait.” By the end of the episode? He was a robot. An EVIL robot.) When something is handed to us free of charge, we are suspicious… what’s the catch? What’s wrong with it?

This is hitting me in every place right now, fiction, business, etc. Conflict is key in fiction, the world doesn’t want a story where a protag wakes up in her mansion, goes to her job where she gets a promotion and a raise, meets a guy out at lunch and falls for him, and then goes out on the perfect date (meaning you don’t have sex- also something we don’t trust receiving too easily) and then goes to bed. Snoreville. We need a scrappy story with some conflict, some rocks thrown at the protag. We want to step on the anthill to see how the ants react and then see how they rebuild.

Also, people don’t trust free or cheap items. I had a friend who says he sold more books when he upped the price from $5 to $10. The key to retail is finding the sweet spot of “Oh, it’s only a dollar? Must be crap, then,” and, “Hell, I’m not paying THAT much!” Selling (or giving away) stuff online is tough in this aspect.

If you asked someone, they’d probably tell you that free stuff is their ideal, but really, we don’t trust free stuff. We don’t trust perfect people. If there’s no conflict at all, no indication of having to work for something, we do not respect it, we don’t like it, and we don’t trust it.