You wake up one day trapped in a very large, posh house. This house has everything you could possibly want. Anything you can imagine that you would want in your dream home, this house has it.
The thing is, you can’t leave. The windows are unbreakable and there are no doors. As you wake up confused and scared, you step out of bed to investigate this new gilded prison of yours. You discover you’re not alone.
There is a stranger in the house with you. This person is someone you find physically attractive. Although, you’re not really thinking in those terms right now because you’re freaking the fuck out. The person you are with, as far as you can tell, seems to be equally as scared and confused as you are.
As the two of you converse and try to figure out what the hell is going on, an adjacent TV flickers on. On it appears a friendly looking face. The friendly face goes on to explain to you that they are of an alien race. All but a handful of people on Earth have expired due to a cosmological event. They have now placed the remaining humans (in groups of twos) in these homes for their protection while they make attempts to make the Earth habitable again. Friendly face assures you that you will be well cared for, but the repairs to the planet could take over a hundred years. [TV flickers off]
So at this point, what are you thinking? Are you at all suspicious of the person that’s with you? After all, this person IS a stranger and you know nothing about him/her.
Do you think, over time, you could trust this person enough to develop a meaningful relationship?
So…the other person, of the opposite sex, is not loathsome? If we’re going to be there forever, hopefully she will get used to me and overcome her revulsion enough for boom-chicka chicka.
I would begin by ensuring I have a place to go in the house that I can secure. Then I start stockpiling water. I’d probably spend the next week mourning the loss of my children and family. I predict my inconsolable depression would last about 5 days. After that, I would begin exploring.
Is my stranger somehow socially compatible with me? Did the aliens select us as a partnership on purpose?
I’d simply ask the maid and chef questions about our alien overlords, as the house would need these in order to meet my ideal standard.
Pretty distrustful. If they could only save a handful of humans to repopulate the earth, and they picked my sorry-ass, face-down-in-the-genepool genes, we’re all doomed.
Oh, God. This will end badly. No one can stand being stuck with me in a house for long. A year, tops, then the murder-suiciding will begin. Cite: All my previous romantic relationships and roommates, until I wised up and figured out that I need to live alone.
OK, there weren’t actually any murder-suicides, but that’s just because we had doors, and highways to get us the fuck as far away from each other as possible. This setup, though? Yeah, we’re both in Hell.
I’m not sure I trust anyone in this situation yet. Both parties will have to prove themselves before I start fully trusting them. The whole thing could be a big social experiment and the other person is in on it. We could be in an alien zoo with the “uninhabitable Earth” idea just being there to encourage us to go about our daily lives.
Over time, it’s possible, but I’m going to be guarded and watching them like a hawk for quite a while. For the fellow human, enough time would have to pass that I could be reasonably certain that they weren’t involved in the whole thing, an alien in disguise, etc.
Of course, it sounds like the aliens hold all the cards in this scenario. Whether they’re on the level is mostly academic, as they could do whatever they wanted. Still, if they truly have our best interests at heart, surely they would be willing to provide more information to prove their claims. The more they told me, the easier it might be to start trusting the other human.
What do I see when I look out the unbreakable windows?
My first thoughts are to explore my environment and my situation and resources, in those terms you expressed it seems obvious that the intent is to have us make babies and have humanity survive long enough to make the 300 years needed to repair the earth. I would think sex would be in the thought process but not in the immediate foreground.
As for trusting the other person, and for that matter the aliens, I believe I can trust myself to make that judgement, also I believe in my heavenly family’s ability to not only watch over me, but guide me even if I make the wrong choice. So yes I could trust that person to develop such a relationship.
There is also the logical argument, what purpose would it serve to oppose it? It would just be denying me a much needed connection to another person, so I am just making it harder on myself.
Wary of the stranger. Wary of the aliens. I’d investigate the house, and what I could see outdoors. But time is on my side, since I don’t really have any decisions to make.
ETA: So are there TV shows on the TV? Do I have video games to play? Do I have a computer? Internet to all the other houses with pairs of humans?
