Black Christian Mind

The Human Predator You Know – How to Avoid Becoming Prey in the Jungle
by Sabrina Dawkins

Looking into the eyes of an animal predator is like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. The idea that a predatory animal sees a human as nothing more than a food source is disturbing to the human mind. Personally, I like to have control over my environment. I like to know that if I act a certain way, I can expect a certain pleasant outcome. But when encountering a predator that sees me as only a food source, what can I do? I can’t be nice or friendly to ward off an attack. I can’t outrun the predator. I can’t overpower a lion, tiger, or bear. I can’t talk the predator out of making me a meal. The only thing I can think of is not to turn my back on it or behave like prey by showing fear.

Ideally, I don’t even want to be in the presence of a predator. I don’t want to find myself cozying up to one, working with one, or befriending one unknowingly, because as soon as I turn my back, drop my guard, or get close enough, that is the opportunity the predator was waiting for to attack. The desire of the predator is to overpower and consume me, and at a time when there will be the least resistance.

On YouTube I’ve watched lions and tigers sit, crouch, or move very quietly, focused on an unaware target, waiting for the right time to pounce. Natural predators know the best time to strike is when you are least aware of their presence or at your weakest. And they know to go after the easiest targets, such as baby animals, who are relatively weak, small, and easier to overpower than adults.

Human predators think the same way: They want easy targets who are weak, small, or unaware they are in the presence of a predator. They want you off guard and naïve. You are nothing but a food source to them. They may talk to you, even have interesting conversations, mirroring your interests and even behaviors, but it is an act, a performance in order to make you relaxed and comfortable around them so that you will be unprepared when they do attack.

You are a targeted object to a predator. You are not a real human with feelings and emotions. Many of us are not cautious around predators. We don’t even know who they are. We enter their space but have no idea that their only goal is to find the right time to attack us. Our human environment gives us dangerous false information. We are taught that men who don’t show their emotions are strong and those who cry are weak. We are taught that serial killers are psychopaths, but ruthless executives of unethical companies are just successful capitalists and businessmen, and that football players and boxers who hurt other people for a living are just good athletes. Women who only date or marry rich men are considered gold diggers but not psychopathic prostitutes who couldn’t care less about the emotion called love.

Like looking at a three-inch thick glass barrier separating the zoo visitors from the apex predators, we see these characters on the television screen who are powerful, successful, seductive, and we start looking for their “attractive” characteristics in people we come across in everyday life, thinking they are positive traits, only to come face to face with a loaded gun, a human predator whose eyes seem to look through us, not at us, as if we aren’t even there, as if the mind of the predator is focused on something else, and we are the unfortunate temporary means to satisfy the predator’s appetite, whether it be through sex, rape, murder, money.

When you meet new people, try to do less talking and more listening and observing. Don’t be susceptible to compliments, flattery. And if you’ve talked too much, the predator has plenty of information in order to mirror your interests and flatter your insecurities. Predators might even poke at your insecurities and wounds in order to further weaken you, hurt you, destroy any confidence you may have so that you will be completely dependent on them to build you up again, which they won’t do—they will alternate between compliments and insults to keep you unsteady, confused, and broken.

Predators will use anything at their disposal to gain your trust in order to catch you relaxed and off guard around them. It is hypnosis. And once they’ve mirrored you enough, built up the fake character that you wished for from observing your likes, dislikes, dreams, put you to sleep with a too-good-to-be-true comforting image of themselves, they will lunge at you.

Your goal is to force them to express their natural behavior before the ideal time they were hoping to so that you know their true identity as predators before they attack you, before you give them your life story so that they can become the fantasy persona that matches your desires. Look for subtle body language that reveals impatience as you quietly observe them and they get annoyed that the scheme is not going as planned because you aren’t giving them the information they need in order to build up a false character or you are resolutely saying no to the stranger’s requests instead of saying yes to be polite.

Predators, whether they be on TV, in boardrooms, schools, walking down the street, even in churches are more attractive and charismatic than the regular person because they give you the false image you crave. They tell you what you want to hear. They give you permission to do what you want. And then they pounce on you and consume you when you’ve completely fallen for their scheme. You are in the jungle. Predators are all around, hidden. Remain alert. And don’t let the three-inch thick zoo glass fool you into a sense of security. More predators probably live on the opposite side of it, in your environment.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.

2 Timothy 4:3