Are we alone in the universe? It's highly unlikely given the number of stars and potential planets.
But are we actively encountering extraterrestrial life? That ones a little harder to discern.
And what do/would they think if they are visiting us? Are we a fascinating primitive culture? Or are we more "lock the doors, roll up the windows, we're in the bad part of the galaxy" neighborhood?
Admittedly, we are kind of strange.
Reddit user 2drums1cymbal asked:
"What are some 'normal' things humans do that an intelligent alien species might find weird, gross or confusing?"
Substances
"Intentionally poisoning ourselves to make our tedious lives more bearable."
"Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, Ecstasy, alcohol, etc..."
~ Snark_Life
"And many other mind-altering substances, like caffeine, and things that evolved to be unpleasant or unpalatable, like capsaicin."
~ -King_Slacker
Mini-Humans Are Useless
"Human babies are useless because hip bone sizes limit how much they can develop before birth. That's why a calf or foal can walk in hours, but a human baby takes a year."
"If aliens reproduce differently enough, they might be confused both as to why our offspring are messy little blobs and as to why we're all so comparatively clingy—because if they don't rely on their parents for survival as much their social structure would probably be wildly different."
~ shyishguyish
Likes
"Exchanging saliva because we like someone."
"Slapping our hands together rapidly because we like something."
"Keep animals captive because we like them."
~ _forum_mod
Taste Is Subjective
"We will put each other's genitalia in our mouth, but we won't eat the overripe black part on the banana."
~ Snoo_63187
Close Shave
"Do we really let someone pass the sharpest blade our species could create near our largest artery only to remove our head/neck hair?"
~ tbfoot
Lacto Tolerance
"'You do WHAT with the lactic fluids of animals? Wait, wait, wait, you're saying you don't just drink it, but you also carefully rot it until it congeals into fatty, solid blocks and then you eat THAT too‽‽'."
"I love cheese, don't get me wrong, but it's hard to think about sometimes."
~ Chairboy
Carne Humana
"We're all made of meat!"
~ imn0tafurry
O Tannenbaum
"Decorate the corpse of a conifer every winter solstice."
~ Mumbles_Stiltskin
Bless You v. Excuse Me
"Others call on the intercession of a deity when someone else expels from the nose, but the bodily function wielder begs for forgiveness when expelling gas from the anus or mouth."
~ prodigy1367
Sports
"Bowling. I always thought an alien or very different culture would be shocked by how many people around me are surprisingly good at accurately rolling a heavy ball 30 feet."
~ NigilQuid
"Some games we play, like bowling, golf, do look a little pointless to an outsider."
~ GaiaSagrada909
Face Leakage
"Crying. Shedding tears as a response to emotions might be confusing or seen as a bizarre leakage of body fluids if emotional expressions manifest differently for them."
~ Fit_Journalist_533
Reproduction
"Having hot sweaty smelly messy sex instead of neatly depositing eggs in a proper incubator and neatly fertilizing them."
"If it's good enough for the salmons, it's good enough for our new fishy masters."
~ fogobum
"Take it a step further. What if they don't reproduce sexually at all?"
"That'd be a huge divide to overcome."
~ 250HardKnocksCaps
"Mitosis is indeed a huge divide."
~ PirateNinjasReddit
Efficiency Ick
"That our reproductive system and waste disposal system are interconnected with each other."
~ soccerdevil22
"Hell, the reproductive, food intake, and waste disposal systems of some invertebrates are all interconnected and enter/exit from the same hole."
~ Peptuck
đź’©đźš˝
"Pooping in water."
"With water being one of the most fundamental resources to human life and health I feel like an alien species would question why we just expel waste into it and flush it away."
~ CaptainCreepwork
What would you add to the list?
