Welcome! Let’s gather so you can all hear me. It’s wonderful that you’re applying to Be a Person—and, specifically, that you’re applying here! My name is Claire, and I’ve been leading these tours all summer.

We’ll start by looking at an example of housing options, so follow me.

This is a “common space” or “living room.” As you can see, it’s super cozy—furry beanbag chairs, low tables, big screen. You might use your living room for hanging with friends, scrolling on your phone, gaming, forcing yourself to do yoga, or just holding sad poses while crying. What’s awesome is that you decide what to do based on your unique goals, and also on your individual level of dread. It fits our core value of “Self-Direction,” which you saw in the PowerPoint earlier.

Moving on to the kitchen: there are also so many ways to personalize the meal plan. You’re going to take ownership of your meals, and the choices are endless: vegan, kosher, halal, vegetarian, gluten-free, keto, paleo, Organic and Sustainable, Totally Unsustainable, Handsome Man TikTok, What Zendaya Eats in a Day, American Girl Doll food. I’m picky, and every day I find something. You’ll have a card, and you just swipe it for groceries, takeout, whatever. There are a bunch of decent restaurants and really something for everyone—I mean, matcha, anyone? If you find yourself up all night, like, scanning thousands of your life mate’s personal e-mails, there’s food available 24/7! The card swipes will show up on a bill you get at the end of every month—there’s always someone who’s, like, “Whaaaaaaaat?”

Now I’m going to tell you about the many options for real-world experience, because they’re right outside your door: getting your car inspected, pretending you don’t see a guy on the street asking for money, or even bringing something to get notarized at a random bank. You’ll also have the chance to place yourself in assorted experiences for which you will receive compensation, which aligns with our core value of “Enrichment.” A lot of people do finance or law, but there are paths in art or writing as well. For people who choose those, we offer a certificate in self-doubt. Anyway, I’d say that no matter what they do, almost everyone here is driven by a deep sense of responsibility to themselves.

Once you’re in a paid experience, there are awesome opportunities to compete with co-workers for stuff like “eye contact from the boss” and “getting invited to the conference in Hawaii.” Promotions and raises do happen, unless you work at a nonprofit like I do, ha ha. There are also people here who never participate in paid experiences but somehow have endless swipes on their card—they don’t self-identify, but you figure it out, because they choose Danish-modern-furniture shopping as one of their real-world experiences.

Let’s keep going. I’ll stop at this room with the bed and answer the question that comes up on every tour: How do people match up to live together? So, you’ll match based on things like—just for example—how much do you party, how neat are you, do you sleep late or get up early, did you vote for Trump, do you want kids, can you stand each other’s families, are you Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. The matching is something you’re going to do on your own, based on those preferences.

Another question I always get: What if you match with someone and it doesn’t work out? So, this happens, and it even happened to me! First of all, there are counsellors you can talk to in order to deal with issues like these, but you can also just switch to a new match or move to a single. That involves some simple paperwork with a lawyer—I actually did it, it was totally not a big deal. It just turned out that we were on different schedules, and he was secretly having this whole sex thing with a chatbot.

Before we close, I want to tell you about why I chose to be here, and—more important—why I stayed. I mean, when I got here, it just felt like I could be myself. Then, once I was here for a little while, I started to wonder: Who is that self? And then, what is a self? Does anyone have one? And does anything matter? But I realized I just needed to keep busy, and so I started leading these tours, and getting involved in other stuff—intramural Quidditch, Mustard-Tasting Club, rubber-duck racing, which is hilarious because they just bob. There might be alcohol involved sometimes, but you didn’t hear that from me! I also started studying computer science so I could install spyware on my ex-life match’s computer. Just kidding—kind of! Anyway, I’ll leave you at the bookstore, so you won’t forget to pick up your “I’m a Person” merch. ♦