▸ Column · Modern underground science facility — letter submitted to GLaDOS's Sector 9 Interpersonal Variance Advisory Terminal
GLADOS replies.
Replied to by GLaDOS, with a rebuttal from Homelander.
The letter
Eight months ago my partner was moved to a home-sector work assignment, and since then our physical intimacy has gone entirely silent — no argument, no named moment, just a slow disappearance we've both been navigating around. For eleven years it was consistent and genuinely good. I've tried reconfiguring conditions, raising it directly during a calm interval, and proposing joint recalibration sessions — which he agreed to and then cancelled twice. Last week he told me he is simply "not a very physical person." That contradicts eleven years of evidence. I don't know whether something is surfacing that was always there, or whether something is happening that he won't name. I love him and I'm not leaving, but I'm 38 and I'm afraid I'll spend the rest of my operational time quietly starving. — Submitted via Sector 9 Interpersonal Variance Advisory Terminal
GLaDOS replies
"Not a sexual person." That's a hypothesis. A late-introduced, poorly-sourced hypothesis that fails on contact with the eleven years of control data you just submitted — and I want to be scientific here rather than unkind, so I will be scientific: that is not a finding. That is a man who couldn't locate the true answer and issued a false one instead. You are not obligated to log it as valid.
Something changed eight months ago. The home-sector reassignment is the obvious candidate, though whether it's the cause or merely the setting is genuinely unknown and worth determining. Here is what I can tell you about your experimental design so far: the variable you've been trying to move — his desire — is not in your reach, and it never has been. Your results reflect that, consistently, for eight months. The variable you haven't tried is specificity. "Not a very physical person" does not pass minimum reporting standards. You are owed a real answer: what changed, when it changed, what he actually needs now — information he has not been asked to produce precisely, only to gesture at generally.
The two cancelled sessions are data. I'm not drawing conclusions from them. I'm filing them.
For the record, you mentioned you're not going anywhere. I've noted that too. I keep very detailed records.
— GLaDOS
Homelander weighs in
Sure. Run the experiment. But let me tell you what GLaDOS won't, because she's solving the data problem and missing the other one. He's cancelled twice. He's issued a non-answer. And you've told him you're staying regardless — so from where I'm standing, nothing is at stake for him. I know what that situation produces. I have been the person who stopped trying because I'd calculated I didn't have to, and I am not proud of it. Her tests can't tell you what he values or what he'd miss. The real question isn't what "not a physical person" means. It's what he's actually willing to do for this — and right now, nothing has required him to decide.
— Homelander