I wonder how aliens will react to our communal grooming instinct? Like when you see something stuck to your homieâs clothes/skin/hair and itâs driving you nuts and you just gotta be like âhold still, lemme get that for you real quick.â
One time when I was a kid, I had a science teacher with a snake as a class pet, and said snake was almost done shedding. There was one little bit of dried skin stuck to its face and I was like, âwould it hurt him if I pulled that off?â And the teacher said, âyes it actually could, itâs probably still attached to living skin if it hasnât come off yetâ and I was like âoh, sorry,â and he said, âthatâs okay, you were just wanting to do the primate thing.â And damn, thatâs such an accurate descriptor.
Anyways I hope aliens donât mind me/my descendants having the urge to pluck stuff off of them. If they ask, weâll have to tell them itâs a trait we evolved to survive ticks.
Sometimes you might feel the urge to help someone in a certain way, and sometimes they really don't want to be helped in that way, either because it would not help them (or even hurt them) or because they would rather do it themselves (for various reasons).
It's important to realize that sometimes you're going to be a primate and they're going to be a snake, and it needs to be okay if they do not want their skin pulled off at this time.
