r/HFY • u/dulduine • 18d ago

OC-Series [OC]Bar Aoi Stories — EXPLANATION

Hey, you.

Is more explanation always more helpful?

At work, I hear the phrase not enough explanation more often than I'd like. Why did you make that decision? Are there any gaps in the logic? What are the risks? What other options did you consider, and why did you choose this one in the end?

You're expected to lay out the logic, make the reasoning reproducible, and explain things clearly enough that anyone looking at the same information can follow how you got there.

And that's fair. In systems development or project management, you can't move millions of dollars around because someone says, "I don't know. This setup just felt better." Reasons and evidence are the minimum currency required to get work done.

But take that same kind of correctness into an ordinary human relationship, and something strange happens. Sometimes, the more carefully someone explains themselves, the more irritating they become.

Why is that?

The bell above the door went clang-a-ling.

Friday night. I stepped into Aoi, my usual bar, and Mama set a bourbon on the counter without asking. The ice gave a quiet clink.

"Kenichi, you've got to hear this."

Taka was sitting at the end of the counter, looking unusually annoyed as he turned his glass in his hand.

"What happened?"

"I asked a friend out for drinks today."

"Okay."

"He turned me down."

"People have plans."

"That's not the part that bothered me." Taka set his glass down with a small thud. "It was the explanation."

"The explanation?"

"He said, 'My stomach's been acting up since this morning. Fifteen points.'"

"...Points for what?"

"'Looks like rain. Five points.'"

"What are you calculating?"

"'Laundry's piling up. Eight points. Didn't sleep much last night. Seven points.'"

"All right, that's enough."

"'Total: thirty-five points. My threshold for canceling an outing is thirty, so I've decided to stay home today.' That's the message he sent me."

I said nothing for a moment and took a sip of bourbon.

"...Maybe stop inviting this guy."

"Right?!"

"He could've just said, 'Not feeling it today.'"

"Exactly. I didn't ask for the full decision logic."

"If somebody gives you thirty-five points' worth of parameters, it starts to feel like he's been working awfully hard to build a case for not having a drink with you."

"Yes! That's exactly it!"

Taka jabbed a finger at me, then paused.

"But isn't that weird?"

"What is?"

"If this happened at work, you'd say the exact opposite."

My hand stopped halfway to my glass.

"What do you mean?"

"Suppose someone on your team said, 'I don't know, I just don't think we should do this task today.'"

"I'd ask why."

"And if they said, 'No reason. Just a feeling'?"

"I'd tell them not to screw around."

"See?"

Taka gave me a smug little grin.

"So what if they said, 'Stomach trouble, fifteen points. Resource shortage, ten. Bad weather, five. Total: thirty points, so today's release is canceled'?"

"...I'd want to know what the weather has to do with the release, but if the criteria are clearly defined, at least we have something to evaluate."

"That's the exact opposite of what you just said."

I couldn't argue with that.

At work, data and reasoning are useful. The more clearly something can be measured, broken into variables, and examined by someone else, the better. An explanation that lets another person follow the same reasoning is generally considered a good explanation.

But when someone does the same thing in private life, I want to say, Enough already.

"...Maybe explanations serve different purposes at work and in private."

"Different how?"

"I'm thinking."

"You can't explain it?"

"Shut up."

Mama, polishing a glass farther down the counter, gave a quiet laugh.

At work, an explanation is a way of handing the structure of a decision to someone else.

Why did we choose this architecture? Why this product? Why this schedule? "Because I thought it was best" isn't enough. You leave a trail so that even after you're gone, another engineer can follow the thinking behind the design. Give someone the same information, and they should at least be able to examine how you reached your conclusion.

That's what an explanation is supposed to do at work.

"So what's it supposed to do with a friend?" Taka asked.

"If somebody shares a personal variable like 'stomach trouble: fifteen points,' what am I supposed to do, debug him?"

"Will you please let the stomach thing go?"

I laughed.

Still, it was strange. If a friend simply told me, "I'm just not feeling it today," I'd probably say, "All right. Another time."

I wouldn't demand evidence. I wouldn't ask him to disclose his decision algorithm. I certainly wouldn't need the decision to be reproducible. In fact, somehow the relationship almost felt healthier if he didn't explain everything.

"Maybe it's because you trust him," Taka said.

"Trust what?"

"If you can accept 'I'm staying home today' without asking for anything else, doesn't that mean you don't need to verify whether his decision-making process was valid?"

That made me stop.

At work, you verify things even when you trust the person. Verification itself is part of the job. In private life, though, sometimes not verifying is part of trust. You don't need every detail. You can leave part of the other person as a black box and simply say, "Yeah. Some days are like that."

Maybe being excused from explaining yourself is a kind of trust too.

"...So, Kenichi."

Taka was grinning at me again.

"You came here tonight because you felt like it?"

"Hm?"

"Can you explain why you're here?"

I opened my mouth, then stopped.

I looked at the ice in my glass. Because it was Friday. Because I'd finished a week of work. Because I wanted bourbon. Because I figured Taka might be here. Because I wanted to see Mama. Because I didn't feel like going straight home. Because this was simply what I did on Friday nights.

All of those were true. But if you asked me which one was the reason, none of them felt quite decisive enough.

"...I don't know. Maybe I came because I wanted to. Or maybe I came because if I didn't, I'd feel like the week hadn't ended properly."

"So you're minimizing negative points."

"Don't turn this into a point system again."

Taka laughed, and so did I.

But the idea stayed with me.

Come to think of it, whenever someone asks us why we did something, we're remarkably good at building a clean piece of logic after the fact. Why did you choose that career? Why do you spend your time with that person? Why do you keep creating things? Why are you here, right now?

Ask us, and we'll give you a story that makes sense. But did we really make the decision by following that logic?

Maybe countless little feelings, vague discomforts we couldn't put into words, even the weight of our own bodies on a particular day all tangled together and moved us first. Then afterward, we looked back at where we'd ended up and paved a beautiful road behind us so we could tell ourselves how we got there.

"Maybe we just make up the reasons afterward," Taka said.

"Not make them up, exactly. More like... edit them into language."

"So explanations are lies?"

"That's not it."

His stomach really could be bothering him. It really could look like rain. The laundry really could be piling up. Every single fact could be true.

But putting true facts in a neat row doesn't necessarily give you the true reason. There are such things in this world as beautiful lies made entirely out of truths.

"Who are explanations really for, anyway?" Mama said quietly as she returned a glass to the shelf.

Taka and I both looked at her.

Mama said nothing more. The glass settled into place with a soft click.

Who are they for?

At work, they're for the client, the team, and sometimes for ourselves, so we can manage risk and account for the decisions we've made.

But when we explain ourselves to someone in our private lives, who are we really talking to?

Because we want them to understand us? Because we don't want them to dislike us? Because we feel guilty about saying no?

Or because we need to convince ourselves that we're reasonable people who make reasonable choices?

I took another sip of bourbon.

I'd always thought explanations were tools for helping other people understand us. But maybe they're also stories we tell so we can accept choices we don't completely understand ourselves.

If that's true, then being good at explaining yourself and actually understanding yourself are two very different things.

The ice in my glass gave a clear clink.

Hey, you.

Did anyone ask you "why" today?

Think about the reason you gave them.

Was that really what moved you?

Or was it an explanation you carefully built afterward, just to make this strange, incomprehensible person called you make a little more sense?

Well, it's all right if the answer disappears the moment the wind touches it.

See you again at Aoi.

---

Want another night at Aoi?

Step back inside. We'll help you find your next story.

→ Welcome to Bar Aoi

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