Safety First...or, you know, whatever

Hello blog buddies! It's been a while...
 
I feel as though I am constantly apologising for not being a regular blogger - to be honest, you probably don't really care - but I have been away in Bella Italia (the country, not the restaurant) seeing the sights, eating the food, watching grown men sit in the middle of town drinking a nice bottle of vino on their own...it's been lovely. But, back to bloggy business (or blog-ness. Blogisness? No, that doesn't work. I'll stop adding blog to stuff.) This week we're talking about saftey and security - tell me if it gets just too exciting for words, won't you? 

In my first year of uni I was staying in halls - very original, I know. One night, we were hanging out in the kitchen, possibly having a party, and, to cut a long story short, my purse got stolen. I should clarify; no one ran in with a gun and grabbed my bag or anything like that, I was partially at fault. I absent-mindedly left my bag in the kitchen when I went to bed, and in the morning my housemate found it jammed behind the freezer with all of its contents gone. It wasn't the best moment of my life.


At first I thought it was someone playing a joke (and I did have a housemate who would have done that. There's one in every flat, isn't there?) but after cancelling all my cards and reporting it to the police (pretty much so I wouldn't have to fork out £40 for a new student ID) I never found out who took it. I had my suspicions it was probably a friend of a housemate, who either didn't know about it, or knew but didn't like me enough to tell me (Standard) but I never got it back, I never found out who it was for sure, and I never got back all those points I had saved on my Waterstones card. That was the real loss, it was heart-breaking. 


Now, you would think that after all that I am like some sort of security badger, always locking the doors and hiding my stuff, writing my name on all my food in the fridge, but I'm not. Apparently, experience has taught me nothing. The other day I was leaving the house with my housemate Jamie and she was surprised I didn't lock the door. She had to show me how to do it because it never occurred to me before. And I've been living here 2 months. 

This is all a lengthy way of getting to my point but here it is: I like to trust people. I know that, on one level, people suck. They may nick your purse or pinch your toilet roll from the bathroom and keep it in their room (this actually happened to me yesterday - why? Why?) but I can't help it. I don't like being suspicious because all this suspicion and street-savvy shrewdness stems from fear, and I don't want to be afraid of people. Is Batman afraid of people? No, he's the Dark Knight, he can kick their arses if he wants to. I bet he doesn't even have a lock on the Bat Cave because, well, it's a cave. And in all things, we should try to be like Batman. That's just a law. 


In Cyprus, they can tell the tourists by seeing who locks their cars and who doesn't, because the locals trust each other. In Jam and Jerusalem (which, by the way, is an awesome TV program) they don't lock their doors, people just walk in. I like that. I want that to be like life! We live in a society where we don't trust anyone, and because of that, it's never going to get better. I would much rather be open to people, to not be guarded or suspicious of them, because if I were they might give me a reason to be suspicious. And yes, my purse got stolen, but I got a new one. I even got a new Waterstones card, it's not quite the same but I'll cope. 

And actually, I started locking my bedroom door this year and then, at the airport a week ago, I realised I'd left my passport in my room and no one could get it and bring it down for me because my room was locked. It cost me (ok, my dad) £234 to switch my flights to a later one so I could go back and get it. I was sensible and shrewd and it still ended up biting me in the arse. When we lock our doors or guard ourselves against people, it feels like we're walling ourselves off from them. And when my purse got stolen, my boyfriend got me a new one, and my housemates took me to the Police station and made sure I was ok (the one who I thought was taking it for a laugh even missed a job interview to help me out) and last week my friend (who has the same name as Jake so we'll call him...Bafter...sure.) got up in the early hours of the morning to get me from the station and take me back so I wouldn't miss the next flight. People are actually quite nice when you let them in and, I know I know, you shouldn't go asking for trouble but wouldn't you rather live like Batman or a Cyprian? He's got gadgets and the weather in Cyprus is lovely. Good times all round.