Singles: Flirt Up Your Life

The next morning both awoke bright and early, awkwardly avoided each other to bathe and use the toilet, and then headed off to work unaware of what would be waiting for them when they returned home. My gentle experiment had failed and I knew that for Tom and Pacifica to be saved I would have to resort to much harsher tactics.

I had hoped Tom and Pacifica would confront their problems together.I began by selling off all of their furniture, their appliances, their wonderful designer art and décor, and even the windows. Then I created a walled enclosure that blocked off roughly 7/8ths of the apartment. The stairs went straight into a tiny enclosed studio style floorspace and all the comforts they had enjoyed before were gone. Their first day home would be a lesson in cooperation. I intended to refurnish their new and tiny apartment with the necessities, but not on day one. For Monday they would have two cheap wooden chairs, facing each other, forcing them to confront one another and the situation. Little did I know how petulant Tom and Pacifica could be!

No sooner had they returned home than the whining began. They had to go to the bathroom, they were filthy, they were tired. I stuck to my guns for a while, forcing Tom and Pacifica to sit in the chairs and hash things out. Instead they sat silently, frequently becoming unruly and trying to leave their "time out" positions. After several hours of their complaining I gave in, if for no other reason than to silence them and preserve their jobs. I paused the game and crammed the absolute basics into their apartment. One shitty bed, a toilet and bath in plain sight, a tiny and second hand table, and a kitchen that made their previous one look like a five star restaurant's.

Neither Tom nor Pacifica were pleased and both spent the entire evening arguing and complaining about their need to take a bath or a crap and their unwillingness to do so in front of their roommate. Not only did neither use the toilet, Tom actually somehow managed to break the toilet even though he just stood next to it looking anxious. Pacifica crept off to bed, no doubt fantasizing about washing herself in the sink at work. I assumed that Tom would get over his crippling modesty but instead he continued to hem and haw about the bathroom situation throughout the entire night. He probably even prayed, but it must not have been to the One True God because he continued to refuse to use the facilities. He also did not think to lay down next to Pacifica in bed, so incoherent and deep was his homosexual revulsion to the opposite sex.

The next morning Pacifica awoke and Tom almost immediately claimed the bed for himself. This meant that while the woman of the house was off performing whatever nebulous job she had secured for herself, the man of the house was snoring soundly in bed. Thus began a routine that lasted as many days as my patience. Tom would sleep while Pacifica worked and she would return home and they would both once again agonize over going to the bathroom. Since Tom's sleep schedule so perfectly synchronized with Pacifica's work schedule neither got a moment of solitude during which to use the toilet or bathtub.

In fact, their schedule caused so much friction for poor Pacifica that by the end of the week she had not bathed or used the toilet once at the apartment. I knew I had to act. Knowing that the toilet and bathtub were once again the two largest points of contention, I replaced them with a well-worn easy chair and a secondhand television set. Tom quickly took a liking to the TV, inspiring a brief moment of hope when he began a regular habit of watching it in his underwear. Why Tom would do this for hours yet become painfully embarrassed the moment he stood up will remain a mystery for the ages.

The problem remained though and neither seemed happy. Pacifica was bringing home money, Tom was a shiftless lout with a habit of breaking appliances and a taste for the rat-poison look-alike snacks in the refrigerator. While the woman slaved away Tom was eating them both out of house and home and doing nothing gainful. Needless to say this was an intolerable situation.

Though Pacifica never fully recovered, she did make an impressive comeback.While Pacifica was at work one day I resolved to act. For the first time in many moons I selected Tom and ordered him to walk over to the farthest corner of the apartment near the stairs. Then, as if ripped from the pages of "The Cask of Amontillado", I carefully walled poor Tom in. When Pacifica returned home she found herself alone at last in the apartment, albeit with a strange mumbling bulge in the masonry. Not surprisingly Pacifica celebrated the occasion; stuffing her face and watching in TV completely naked. For his part, Tom continued to ceaselessly moan, and demonstrated for me that "Singles" prevents sinners from being smote by even the most devious means. Tom didn't even fall asleep or even move; he just stood there, 24 hours a day, complaining without pause, and facing the wall.

I let the game continue for several more days just to see if Pacifica would recover from her disastrous relationship with Tom. Indeed she did recover somewhat, even going so far as to casually walk around in her underwear. Unfortunately, appliances continued to break regularly, the garbage piled up, and with Pacifica's spirits so low I knew that I had failed. I could neither smite nor save Tom and Pacifica. On what I resolved to be the last night of the game I would endure, with the garbage spewing bilious vapor and the refrigerator broken, Tom abruptly turned and faced the other direction. His silent accusation was haunting and shook the very core of my belief system.

"Why do you try to change what you cannot?" Tom seemed to mutely ask.

I had no answer for him. I had always assumed that his degenerate lifestyle, and that of his unhappy roommate Pacifica, were a matter of choice. As I looked into his glassy eyes I knew that homosexuality was not a choice for Tom or Pacifica. My attempts to save them were futile from the beginning. Rather, Tom and Pacifica were locked eternally into their sexuality by the filthy European smut peddlers who were attempting to cram their liberal agenda down the throat of America.

So, I apologize to Tom and Pacifica, for both failing them and subjecting them to the horrors I did. I will remember from now on that homosexual videogame characters don't choose to be homosexual, they are programmed that way.

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst).

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)