I Don't Do Fluff

I have been thinking about voice lately. Not the grand literary kind. More the practical sense of how a person comes across when they open their mouth, send a message, write a note, or try to explain something without wanting to die of second-hand embarrassment from unnecessary padding.

Apparently I do not do fluff.

This was reported back to me with suspicious accuracy by AI, which is funny because AI fluff is one of the things that makes me want to throw a chair. It's the text version of a selfie run through a filter — patting its own back, dressed up to look good rather than telling you anything true. I want truth, accuracy, insight. Not a flattering reflection.

That is not me.

I am not very good at small talk. I can do it, in the same sense that I can probably use a blunt vegetable peeler if required, but it takes more out of me than it looks like from the outside. Some days I navigate the social padding fine. Some days I don't. Either way, I like substance. Pattern. Useful detail. What is actually going on. If there is a point, I want it early. If there is a problem, name it. If there is a fix, excellent, let's get on with it.

I was pleased the warmth came through and got identified in that read. I get read as blunt, sometimes harsh — that's the usual interpretation when people don't know me well. But unkindness isn't the intent. Rudeness, meanness, that's not what I'm doing. The people who actually know me know I'm trying to do better than that. So when the read landed on direct, compressed, sharp — but warm — that mattered.

I do not tend to do decorative emotion. If I care, I usually get specific. The actual person. The actual problem. The actual thing that mattered. That is probably why my writing can read brisk until you know how to hear it. For anything more formal — an email, a letter, person-to-person or person-to-business — I still build it on SCRAP, a structure I picked up in my early twenties: Situation, Complication, Resolution, Action, Politeness. This post isn't that. But the instinct for structure over padding runs through how I build most things, not just writing.

There is also, apparently, a dry sideways humour running through things. Also true. I am rarely trying to be funny in a formal sense. I just notice when something is absurd, badly phrased, structurally ridiculous, or one nudge away from being unintentionally hilarious. Then I cannot unsee it.

The other part that felt true is that I make logical leaps. Quite a lot of them, probably. I know where I am going and sometimes forget that other people have not done the same internal sprint across the ravine. So if I come across as abrupt now and then, it is often not because I have nothing more to say. It is because I have accidentally edited out the bridge.

That, I think, is the actual writing lesson.

Not "be softer". Not "add fluff". Definitely not "make it sound more like AI wrote it".

Just build the bridge.

One more sentence. One more piece of context. One small human signal so the other person can make the jump with me.

That feels like a better goal than trying to be chirpier or softer for the sake of it. I can sustain building the bridge — one more sentence, one more piece of context. I can't sustain being fake. That doesn't mean the responsibility disappears, though. How something lands is still partly on me. I want my communication to be genuine and honest — just not in a way that hurts people. Building the bridge is part of how I manage that.

So this is me, apparently. High signal. No fluff. Dry humour. Specific warmth. Occasional missing bridge.

I can live with that.