The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: People suck

5) People are duplicitous.

You know something? On some level, I can tolerate a person who’s greedy. If I were in a zombie apocalypse and met someone who said to me “I’m only out for myself. If someone comes along with a better offer than you, I’ll take it. Just letting you know up front.” I’d respect that. As bad as what the implications of such a warning are, at least I’d know right out the gate, and would have no expectations of loyalty from such a person, and no reason to have such expectations in the first place. If nothing else, I’d know what I was getting into.

Something I can’t tolerate though? A person who says they’re on my side, only to have it turn out that they were lying.

Unfortunately, duplicity and deceit are all too common, as there are countless snakes in the grass, painting themselves as good, kind, tolerant, and benevolent in order to get something out of those who either genuinely want to believe them, or other two-faced people who want to make themselves look good by supporting them. That willingness of people to take others at their word if it’s said the right way opens the door for any number of thieves, liars, opportunists, politicians, and worthless hypocrites to exploit them, and, if you think the world being overrun by millions of zombies will deter these people, you’ll be sadly mistaken.

In fact, not only will such people get worse, but, they’ll multiply, as many people, freed from the judgment of society, will give in to the deceitful monster that lies within them, and do whatever they think necessary to anyone else in order to stay ahead.

The worst part is that so many of these people will be tough to weed out from the kind of people you might want to have with you in a zombie apocalypse. While some behavior may be a dead give away as to the sort of slime a person might be, with others, it might take a lot of time, a lot of watching, a lot of listening, and maybe even getting into some dangerous situations before you can truly tell the worst of the worst from the people you want on your side.

Trust is the most important thing you can give someone in a zombie apocalypse, and you need to make damn sure you’re giving it to the right people.