The Single Girl's Guide to Comprising Homeland Security
by Jen Kirkman
November 6, 2006
My mom left a book-chip -- you know one, of those self-help-for-singles book-chips -- on my unmade rejuvenation platform this morning, while I was in the air cleanser. It's bad enough that the New Reform Alien Government has declared single people a threat to planetary security, now my own mother wants me to find a man for all the wrong reasons. You can grow to love someone, she's always saying. But for now, just keep a low profile, and get off the New Reform's watch list.
I scanned the chip into my Magno-Electric Information Pad. I was going to have to delete a few more books-on-chip that I never listened to so I could make room for her latest, How to Marry the Man of Your Choice — And Get Off the New Reform's Watch List!
I sighed. Humanity has attained world peace, but people who were romantically unaccounted-for were considered a security threat. I wished I'd lived before 2008, before other species stepped in to teach us how to live in harmony. I sort of understood their philosophy -- that if you spend too much time alone and in your head, it can lead to selfishness and greed, or just sexual frustration, which, in turn, can lead to the desire for world domination -- but I refused to believe that someone was a more peaceful person just because they'd found someone to live to be two hundred with. And I never thought it was fair that people had to live with their parents until they found a partner.
My mom poked her head into my pod, holding her morning cell-replacement syringe, and immediately started to pry. "You didn't stay late at the Data Dock last night."
"Mother, I'm twenty-one years old," I said. "I'm practically old enough to begin fighting disease with my mind. You don't have to keep harping on my dating life."
"Dating?" she smirked. "That's what we said in my generation."
"Okay, okay. Stop harping on my progress to find another human to cohabitate with for the preservation of world peace."
"Just remember," she replied, "If you don't find love, evil wins."
That night, the last place I wanted to go was Speed-Data Referencing. I'd never believed that romance can be found in a warehouse, albeit one that's sterile and completely eco-friendly. I hated walking by other people, holding up my pocket-sized Personal Data Identifier to theirs to "check them out." I always walked away immediately to read the results on the screen in private. It was usually the same story. He wants kids but not until we can procreate with aliens. He loves conspiracy theories -- what if the government is in our minds? Or he's almost perfect -- he believes in love, conversation and long walks where the beaches used to be -- but he frequently travels to the outer surface of the sun on the Global Warming Reversal project and will likely be burnt to a crisp before he reaches his first midlife crisis.
But sometimes, my PDI will beep, signifying that a match has been made: Please proceed to the nearest cube corner and begin filling out paperwork. The New Reform Government will contact you both shortly with your first-date assignment, based on your mutual likes and dislikes.
The last time I was at the Data Dock, I saw a guy who was different. He wore jeans, not some kind of hypoallergenic rubber pant like most other men. He wasn't swiping his PDI with anyone else's, which is no small thing. If the New World senses inactivity, a lack of saying "yes" to life and willingness to date, that's grounds for a visit to an internment camp.
I tried to move my PDI in his general vicinity, to swipe him casually, as if by accident, hoping our compatibility would elicit beeping so wild that the whole warehouse would take notice. But I couldn't get near him. He slinked away expertly, just observing the crowd. We made eye contact a few times, but eventually I lost sight of him. I named him Jack.
My first dates are usually at the restaurant just outside earth's atmosphere. The view is nice, and with shuttle rates being so cheap, you really can just make a night of it. The conversations are always so seamless it's actually awkward. The guy can usually finish my sentence for me; our compatibility -- based on our yearly government-issued personality tests -- so high that we're almost psychically linked. It usually turns out that we work for the same company, Eternal Life, which specializes in defeating human death. Since thousands of people work at this company it's quite feasible we've never met. But the conversation is always the same.
Sometimes, I just want to pretend to love someone so that I can stop the cycle of tedium. But that would require ripping off the electrodes the waiters fasten to my heart. The last person who took me to dinner was Leo, the humorless bore. He spent the entire night making zero-gravity jokes like, "Hey, eat as much as you want. We're weightless!" He said it so loudly the women at other platforms rolled their eyes on my behalf.
But Leo was really attractive. He was one of many babies born whose parents had genetically engineered his physical features somewhere between a Greek God and an old-time movie star like Brad Pitt. Listening to him, I wished it were still possible for humans to be deaf, but I tried to make it work just so I could touch him. On my data-analysis form, I indicated that I found him to be funny and charming. But the electrodes reading didn't lie. I was fined by the New Reform Government for trying to force something that wasn't meant to be. For nights afterward, when I was alone, I would fantasize about just one night of meaningless sex with Jack back at my pod. But I never got very far. Meaningless sex would get you brought in for questioning -- it was an act of defiance against the New World Order.
My mom hates to reminisce about the old days. One morning, I was pulling on my boots as I asked her, "So, you met dad, at a bar? And you just went up and talked to him? And then what?"
"Listen to me," she said, getting up to leave the room. "Nothing was fun before World Peace. We were reckless with our relationships, clinging to anybody we could so we'd never have to be alone. Now don't stay out all day today. I need help with dinner."
I stepped outside and took a deep breath of the continually recycled, lavender-scented air. Riding the solar-powered moving sidewalk to the skyway station, I decided that before I went to the local data station to surrender my reports on how the mating process was going, I'd stop at the Starbucks, one of the only remnants of corporate America. It was overly sentimental to be seen in a place like that, but at least it was legal.
I swiped the tattooed barcode on my wrist on the outside panel of the skyway port and climbed in. It wasn't that crowded, so I was able to sit instead of slipping into one of the awkward Velcro vests and sticking myself to the wall. I teased myself with thoughts of seeing Jack on the skyway. "I'll just go right up to him and talk to him," I thought. "I'll tell him I love him. In front of everyone. I don't care if it's punishable." I let those feelings of anxiety bubble up, giving myself a little rush before returning to reality at my stop.
I walked into the Starbucks and into a world of hipster couples on nostalgia trips. Everyone was sitting at tables, using old-fashioned laptop computers and drinking coffee out of cups. I became mesmerized by the pastry display, so I didn't see the guy behind me as I stepped back into the line and onto his foot.
It was Jack.
I smiled at him.
"Are you two together?" the girl behind the counter asked. "Ready to order?" I backed off the line and Jack ordered two coffees. We still hadn't said a word.
He followed me to my table and put the coffee down in front of me. "Hi." I smiled. I wasn't trying to be coy, I was speechless. If this was the feeling that my mom got when she met my dad at a bar, I think it would be worth living in an unsafe world. I checked my PDI; he checked his. They were dark and silent.
He read my statistics back to me. "Works for Eternal Life. Control Freak. Overly sentimental. Mildly dissatisfied. Has trust issues." Yup, that was me. Then he turned his PDI off. I looked around nervously. He was going to get in trouble. Within twenty-four hours, someone could come to take him away.
"Don't do that!" I said.
He put his hand on mine and smiled carelessly. "Why shouldn't I?"
"I guess I don't know."
He reached for my PDI. I let him turn it off. "Well, then, I guess we both don't know," he said. He put his hand on mine. I pictured myself jumping over the table and kissing him passionately.
Instead, I reached across the table to shake his hand even though our left hands were already clasped. I spilled my coffee, reached for a napkin and spilled his. I hoped something adorably awkward like that would happen.
"What are you so nervous about?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Listen, I don't even know you, and I'm risking being taken away by the government just so we can have coffee together."
He laughed. "Come on. You don't believe that, do you? They're not that organized. It's never happened before."
It had never dawned on me that the New Reform couldn't really mobilize. I felt like an idiot. Jack and I might actually have more than a whirlwind romance; we could spend the next two hundred years together.
I glanced across the table and noticed that Jack had one eyebrow hair longer than the rest. He casually launched into a funny story, probably the story he tells on all his first dates when he's on his A-game. I concentrated on that unruly hair, and tried to imagine the day when I'd be comfortable enough to just reach up and pluck it. I hoped that day would never come. n°
©2006 Jen Kirkman & hooksexup.com