The Sensible One

The Sensible One has a simple habit that turns out to be surprisingly useful: she asks what we actually know. Not what somebody posted, not what everybody is repeating, and not what would be exciting if it were true. What do we know?

She also has what the flock delicately refers to as an exceptional ability to smell shite. Her bullshit detector is considerably sharper than the average pigeon’s. A story can arrive wearing statistics, confidence and a respectable coat, and she will still notice when something underneath it does not smell right.

She is good at separating fact from rumour, evidence from inference and disagreement from nonsense. Possible is not the same as plausible. Plausible is not the same as proven. And sometimes the most accurate answer really is: we do not know yet.

That does not make her cynical. She likes different viewpoints, better conversations and the occasional theory when everyone involved remembers it is still a theory. Her patience starts to thin when certainty arrives before the evidence, or when somebody hopes volume will compensate for the smell.

She is usually the pigeon who stops the flock disappearing completely down a rabbit hole, though not always before taking a quick look over the edge herself. Kindness matters to her as much as correctness. Being wrong is not a character flaw. Refusing to listen when the facts change is another matter.