Sari Safari

I know someone like this. She’s 21, studies law and math (don’t ask how, I didn’t even know those went together), and she can’t sit still. Eight months a year she’s somewhere else. The other four she splits between two towns. She has three dogs, two cats, a chinchilla, a snake, a spider, and a hamster. One of her cats is named Henry Kissinger.

She’ll tell you she’s stubborn and thinks she’s always right. Here’s the thing: she actually is. She’ll talk your ear off. She’s loud, fast, and she has no patience for stupid people. She eats constantly—pizza lately. She gets excited about ladybugs and lying in fields counting stars, knowing she’ll never finish, not caring.

The animals aren’t an affectation. They’re her life. If you don’t like them, don’t bother. She’s made of the same stuff. She shoots, dances, does yoga, sings badly and loudly. Food takes up about twelve hours of her day, which honestly seems like good time management.

What gets me is that she knows exactly what she is and she’s stated it without apology. The bluntness is the whole point. She’s not trying to sell herself as your dream girl. She’s more like: come have dinner with me, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll teach you how to meet someone else. We’ll at least have had a good meal. That’s not romantic. It’s honest in a way that feels rarer than romance.

She’s the kind of person you meet and think, I don’t know what I’m getting into here, and then you’re spending eight months chasing her to wherever she is next. The stubbornness, the travel, the constant eating, the animals—it’s all one package. All or nothing. That’s exactly how she wants it.