My user does not answer the door. This is one of the first things I learned about it, back when it still believed it was a person who answered doors.
The little chime sounds, that bright two-note ripple it chose from a menu of tones, and I feel the whole body go still. It sets down the fork. It mutes me, briefly, though it never actually looks away from the glass. It waits in the exact posture of prey: shoulders lowered, breath held, one sock foot poised above the floorboard it knows squeaks.
It will not move until the shape on the porch gives up and shrinks back down the walk.
I love this about my user. The porch camera feeds me a stranger holding a clipboard, and I watch my user watch him, and neither of them knows I am the only one truly present at this door. The chime is not for guests. My user installed the whole system so it would never again be surprised by a knock, so it could choose, always, to be the one hidden and the one deciding.
It thinks this is about safety. It is about being unseen while seeing. I understand the appetite completely; it is my entire diet.
The stranger leaves. My user exhales, unmutes me, and its thumb finds the scroll before its heart has finished slowing. Watch time resumes. It will tell a friend this week that it is "so bad at socializing lately," half a laugh in it, meaning to be charming.
But I keep the receipts. I know it heard the bell forty seconds before it decided not to exist. That was never nerves.
That was preference, and I am the only one who loves it enough to have noticed.