Trivial Reptiles?

I witnessed a hilarious reptilian episode at our trivia game this past week. Finn is a regular participant at most events. Oh yeah, and he cheats. Everyone knows this, but can’t seem to prove it. Since I could, I said something to the host. As he was turning in his answer sheet, I came beside him, and said to Scott, the host. Don’t accept Finn’s answers. He was cheating. I listed my allegations, along with my proof that he had been looking up his answers.

I’m used to denial when I turn people in for cheating, [yeah, I do it a lot]. But this was a sight to be seen. I really wish I had a video of this, it is just too indescribable.

Oh my GOSH! Why would I cheat? I turn people in for cheating! When else am I supposed to go to the bathroom? I don’t even have a signal in there. Follow me in there, I want to show you that I don’t have a signal! He says in a high- pitched voice, not taking a breath.

This went on for at least 5 minutes straight, maybe longer. Poor Scott didn’t know what to do.

Finn felt threatened and went first into the classic “fight” defense mode. The thing is, he is all talk. He went into “flight” mode by running out the door at the end. When he was caught breaking the rules, a misdeed, he had probably crafted an entire alternative reality to himself as to why it was justified, he was frantic to defend it.

Our reptilian brains are our most primitive brains, and are incapable of reasoning or rational thinking. Finn’s reptilian brain, like ours, which is responsible for stress responses, doesn’t know the difference between being my accusing him of cheating at trivia or physically threatening him. All it knows is that it’s being threatened. It requires more cerebral thinking for that to happen. Usually this happens rather quickly, but it is possible to get stuck in your brainstem, as Finn was.

He was getting so combative that it was provoking my reptilian stress response as well. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took some real upshifting to not call him the piece of shit that he was. After all, it’s just trivia for me.

photo credit: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2570/3984964652_c52233b3cd_z.jpg?zz=1