“You don’t know what you are made of till you’ve been stalked across three countries” by Shoshannah Tekofsky

When I was 19 I made some decisions. One of them was to stop eating meat. One of them was to stop using cutlery. One of them was to stop using chairs. Before you tell me this is a certain type of person, I assure you I was the only type of person making these types of decisions as far as I knew. I was in college and the summer was fast approaching. A summer where we had to leave campus for 2 months and figure out some other place to exist meanwhile. I hadn’t figured out any place to exist meanwhile. Instead I went to grab a meal at the campus dining hall. And that's where I met my new friend. She sat alone when I came in. I felt like meeting new people so asked to join her. We had fun chatting. I asked her about her summer plans. She had none. I told her how cool I thought it would be to go backpacking across Europe without any plan or budget. She agreed. We decided on the spot to go together. Two weeks later. And so we did. Our parents saw us off at the station. [...] --- First published: April 8th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ANLrj5GpD9xxJoQoN/you-don-t-know-what-you-are-made-of-till-you-ve-been-stalked-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.