Welcome back to another Question of the Week here at The Confusing Middle!

This week’s question is about connection — and what we actually need from other people when the options get stripped down to almost nothing. If you had to spend the next two years in a small, fully provisioned Antarctic shelter with one other person, who would you want to be with?

Take a moment with that. I did. And the answer I landed on might surprise you — or it might tell you everything you need to know about me.

My First Instinct (and Why I’m Not Going There)

I’ll be honest with you. My very first thought was Jennifer Love Hewitt. My second thought was Sydney Sweeney. I am not going to pretend otherwise, because this is an honest blog and that’s what happened.

But I think we can all agree that picking a celebrity crush as your Antarctic companion is a little bit of a dodge. It sidesteps the actual weight of the question, which is not who do you find appealing but rather who could you genuinely survive two years of total isolation with without one of you snapping. So I set that category aside, filed it under “the wink-and-nod answer,” and tried to think more seriously.

That’s when things got harder.

The Problem With Actual People

When I started running through the real people in my life — friends, family members, people I genuinely care about — I ran into a problem almost immediately. A pro/con list materialized in my head for every single person, and in every single case, the cons started winning.

Not because these are bad people. They are not bad people. They are people I love. But love and two uninterrupted years in a confined space in Antarctica are two very different propositions, and my brain knows the difference even when my heart wants to be generous.

Part of this is circumstantial. If I were married, this question would be a lot easier to answer. I’d just say “my wife,” and I’d mean it, and we’d move on. There’s something about that particular kind of partnership — the one you’ve specifically chosen and built for the long haul — that seems designed, at least in theory, for exactly this kind of test. But I’m not married. And without that specific relationship in my life, everyone else is working with a significant structural disadvantage.

The other part is just… me.

Training My Whole Life for This (Just Not With Other People)

I am an introvert. I have been one my entire life, and I have made a certain kind of peace with that fact. During the pandemic, I spent long stretches without leaving my apartment, and I want to be clear: I was fine. I was genuinely fine. I kept myself busy. I had things to do. I did not feel the walls closing in.

The key variable there was that I lived alone.

I used to joke that introverts had been training their whole lives for pandemic-style isolation. And there’s real truth to that. Being alone doesn’t wear me out the way it wears out other people. I can spend a long time inside my own head and not feel like I’m missing something. I recharge in solitude. I do my best thinking there.

What I cannot do — or at least, what I find genuinely difficult — is spend that same kind of time inside a small space with another person and feel equally okay about it. I’ve been snowed in with roommates before. I’ve done the cabin-fever thing with family during extended holiday stays. And in every one of those situations, there came a point — usually faster than I expected — where I felt the specific kind of exhaustion that comes not from doing too much, but from being around too much.

That’s not a reflection on those people. I want to say that clearly. It is entirely, completely, one hundred percent a me problem. I have a tolerance for sustained human proximity that runs out faster than most people’s, and no amount of goodwill changes that arithmetic.

So when I try to imagine two years in Antarctica with another person — any person — I am mostly imagining the math. And the math is not great.

The Answer I’m Actually Going With

His name is Krypto. He is a dog. He is the best dog. Full stop.

I recognize that this might read as a cop-out. I want to make the case that it is not.

Krypto would not care about the cold the same way I would care about the cold, which is to say, he would complain about it more directly and with fewer words, and I find that kind of honesty refreshing. He would not need to process his feelings at eleven o’clock at night. He would not need me to be “on.” He would not need conversation, or collaboration, or the kind of mutual performance that even the best human relationships require at some baseline level. He would need food, and walks (limited, given the conditions), and the occasional acknowledgment that he is, in fact, the best dog, which I would provide freely and often because it is simply true.

In exchange, he would give me consistent, low-maintenance, judgment-free company. He would be warm. He would be present without demanding presence in return. And when I needed to disappear into a book or a movie or a long writing session — because the shelter is fully provisioned, and I am choosing to interpret that as including internet access, a stationary bike, a television, and presumably the eventual release of Grand Theft Auto VI — he would let me do that without taking it personally.

No human being I know can offer me that deal. Not because they’re not wonderful. But because humans are humans, and they have needs, and navigating those needs over two years in a small Antarctic shelter is a project I am not confident I have the emotional bandwidth to manage.

Krypto doesn’t have needs like that. He has simpler needs. And for this particular hypothetical, simpler is what I need.

What This Probably Says About Me

I’ll admit that landing on “my dog” as the answer to a question about human connection says something. I’m not entirely sure it’s flattering.

Maybe it says I’ve gotten too comfortable with solitude. Maybe it says I underestimate my own capacity for sustained closeness. Maybe it says I’m the kind of person who finds it easier to love something that won’t ask hard questions or need things I don’t know how to give.

Or maybe it just says that I know myself well enough to be honest about it, and that’s worth something.

Either way — I’m bringing Krypto. He won’t love the cold. But he’ll love me anyway, unconditionally, every single day, for the full two years. And when I think about what I actually need to survive a long stretch of isolation with one companion, that turns out to be pretty close to the whole answer.

Jennifer Love Hewitt’s loss, honestly.

Your Turn

I want to know who you’d bring — and I want the real answer, not the easy one. Did someone come to mind immediately and hold up under scrutiny? Or did you do what I did and run through a mental pro/con list until everyone fell out the bottom? And if you’re an introvert, how did you think about this one? Two years is a long time to manage your energy around another person.

Drop your answer in the comments. I’ll be down there with Krypto, rationing the Cheetos and Beggin’ Strips.

Until next week — this is Aaron, still here at The Confusing Middle, still figuring out what my hypothetical choices say about my actual self.

Feature Photo by Sergey Torbik