People need people ... but not that bad.

Apparently, German twenty-something loneliness is a trend. (Blame Hitler.)

But, see, that guy over there, that's Paul. He's not posing for a stylized online personal photo. He's wallpaper.

When you're living alone and can't stand your own company and you're sick of sitcom laugh tracks being the closest thing you've got to human interaction, you stick one of this company's two-dimensional "roommates" up and, voila! Talking to yourself just got more depressing.

As someone who, after seeing a horror movie, even a really poorly made one (most, these days), will jump even upon catching a peripheral glimpse of my reflection in the mirror -- thinking some doom-bringing body has entered the room --- I don't know what to make of this, the latest trend (Oh God, I hope not.) for solo apartment dwellers.

It's gotta be a joke, right?

Maybe.

But each of these wall-people serves a different purpose. "Paul" likes watching TV. "Priscilla" is the party queen (who never moves -- but also never needs her drink freshened!) "Christine K." will advise you on what to wear. And those voices in your head will tell you how to tie the noose.

As someone who lived alone for a good deal of time, I can attest to the positives (no splitting the phone bill, no being questioned on why you're hogging the TV to replay the finale of Buffy for the third time, no weird odors that you can't identify that must be attributable to someone else) and the negatives (not having some to reassure you that the Mothman from that bad Richard Gere movie is not outside your window.) Yet, no matter how empty your apartment seems with just you in it, I can't imagine a glossy German is going to make you feel like you're not whipping up Rice-a-Roni for one.

And how weird would it be to introduce the company you do occasionally have to your Photoshopped wallmate?

What make me wonder the most, though, is: Who are these people posing to be substitutes for actual friends? I mean, don't they find it disconcerting to know that their likenesses are serving to further reclusiveness? Won't they wonder what lonely urbanites are saying to them in the middle of the night? Isn't it a bit weird to knowingly partake in one-sided conversations? To imagine that day your permanently-reclining-and-silent form will likely be dumped for wallpaper half-chosen by a roommate with a pulse? To know that, for now, you're being used?

I mean, wouldn't it be a lot like going on, say, the Web, to read someone else's thoughts and opinions and never necessarily getting a chance to air your own and just allowing that person a forum for self-indulgence and an audience and ...

Oh.