Don’t be fooled by this blog title; my survival instincts are terrible.
This might surprise you, as I am a notorious over-sharer and therefore you might expect I keep people updated on my whereabouts and goings-on at all times. You would be correct in this assumption. And yet.
Ninety minutes into a hike on a 99 degree day in the blazing sun and my blood sugar plummets quickly enough that I have to do that thing where you put your head between your knees. No cell service, no one else around, and no trail markers (a charming hallmark of West Coast hiking). Something that’s always been a bit of a joke, a loving insult about the likelihood of my independence (read: impetuousness) getting me into trouble became kind of a stark reality. People die like this.
Obviously, I didn’t, but that’s not really the point.
The fact of the matter is that there are literally so many things in this life that can kill you. I tend to give my phone number to strangers pretty freely. I regret this immediately about 90% of the time. A few weeks ago I was being idly pursued by this dude, let’s call him Shane (because that’s his name). If you think being idly pursued is a contradiction in terms, you obviously have never dated in the year of our lord 2015.
Anyway, I was being pursued by Shane who is a man of few words and also a fitness model. I live in LA and this is the kind of thing that people actually do for a living. Shane asked for my number before asking my name and because I am an actual terror this was intriguing to me and I gave it to him. Here is a brief snippet of the text message interaction that followed:
Shane: haha so like who do you live with?
Me: haha why? … are you planning to murder me?
Shane: [does not respond]
Me: lololol sorry was that too aggressive?
Shane: haha no not at all you’re way too cute to murder.
LIKE, THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT SHANE BUT HONESTLY. A friend of mine has pointed out to me that I am the one who brought murder up in this instance so I can’t really blame Shane too much. I agree that this is true. As this is a post about my terrible survival instincts, I think this just emphasizes my point. After this part of the conversation, my small interest in Shane waned considerably, so at least I have that going for me.
Another example, something my mom once wrote on a selfie I posted to Facebook after impulsively buying a plane ticket to Iceland. At this point, I consider my rampant selfie-positing an adaptive mechanism. If ever I go missing, you’ll have the most up-to-date views of my face to show the police.
Somehow, though, my success rate for survival is still 100%, so I don’t really see any reason to change.
GraySeaGirl 