Delay, Deflect, Distract—And Other Ways to Mishandle Suspicion
/Imagine this. You think your significant other is cheating on you.
Why would I tell my AI girlfriend to cheat on me?
No, sorry, I wasn’t clear. For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine you’re in a relationship with a real live person of whatever sex you prefer. I’ll describe it from my hetero male perspective.
So: you think your girlfriend might be cheating. There have been signs—little things—over the past few months. You’re trying not to spiral, but it’s been eating at you.
Then one day, you get up from the couch to grab a drink. As you pass the hallway, you see her standing outside the bathroom door, staring at her phone. She has this soft, dopey smile on her face. She’s biting her lower lip. She looks captivated. She doesn’t know you’re watching.
You say, “What are you looking at?”
Startled, she jumps a little. “Oh,” she says, “it’s just a picture. It’s… my mom’s cat.”
You’re suspicious. “Let me see it,” you say.
She turns the phone to you to show you a picture of her mom’s cat. Your suspicion dissipates.
That’s one scenario.
Now, imagine any of these things happen.
She says, “Sure, just a second.” She taps her phone a few times, turns it to you, and shows you a picture of a cat.
She says, “Okay, I’m going to take a screenshot of what I’m looking at and then text it to you.”
She ducks into the bathroom for a couple of seconds, then steps back into the hallway and shows you her phone. “See? Just a picture of a cat.”
She puts the phone in her pocket and says, “Hey, do I have a bug bite on the back of my neck?” Then a couple of minutes later, she brings out her phone and shows you a picture, and says, “This is what I was looking at.”
Do you think you’d be satisfied with any of those four options? Would you be convinced and have your mind put at ease? Or would you be even more suspicious?
Calen Morelli has a trick out called Quantum Aperture. It’s an incredible illusion and I have no idea how it works.
Over on this Magic Cafe thread, they’re discussing ways to clean up at the end, with mostly awful results.
During the trick, all suspicion is focused on this incredible card with the moving hole.
If, when the trick is over, you do anything to break their focus on the card or hide it from them or put it in contact with a full deck of cards, you’re just creating additional suspicion.
If you do anything other than hand them the card at the end, they’re going to know you did “something.”
Stop pretending you don’t understand how suspicion works.
Think back to your girlfriend and her phone. When suspicion has already been triggered, any indirect actions just make it worse.
Magic works the same way.
Creating additional suspicion is fine if you’re just showing them a puzzle.
But if you’re trying to create a moment of genuine impossibility, you need to resolve their suspicion in a direct, natural way.
Anything other than that and you’re fooling yourself, not your spectator.