I’ve lived almost 30 years of this “life” and have yet to get serial killed. Not even once. How did I do it? I consumed over 10,000 hours of true crime content and came to a simple conclusion: average people don’t get serial killed. Listen to the interviews of family and friends and you’ll hear that all of the victims were the most kind, intelligent, and altruistic human beings. Understanding this, I’ve carefully crafted an average life with little to no meaning. Ask my friends and family and the best thing they’ll say about me is, “well, he is alive.” Realizing there might be one or two of you that also want to avoid being featured on a Dateline episode, I’ve decided to share the secrets to my success. After exhaustive research on the subject, I have meticulously constructed an existence avoiding the five most common ways victims of serial killers are described. 

1. They lit up every room they were in. Huge mistake. You know what happens in well lit rooms? People can see better. Meaning serial killers can see you better. When I enter a room I make sure there’s no increase in visibility. In fact, I tend to make rooms a little dimmer when I enter. Not dark, but there is definitely a loss of light. Just enough to make people look around to see if a light bulb went out or question if they have cataracts. The key is to wear bland colors and keep neutral facial expressions. If there’s a side or back entrance to the room where you can slip in without being noticed then that’s ideal. The goal is for people to struggle to recall if you came to the event or not.
   
2. They had such a bright future ahead of them. An obvious conclusion is that those bright futures are why they were targeted. I certainly have a future ahead of me, but most people wouldn’t consider it bright. My future outlook tends to be described as the “bare minimum of an existence.” I will get older and there will be life events that occur. They will just have limited significance. My future is like a bowl of chili without cornbread. Like, it’s fine, but no one is that excited about it. So you should totally be proud of all of your potential. You might change the world. But you also might end up stuffed in a barrel and left in the New Hampshire woods. That’s just the risk you run when you’re exceptional. Me? I’m not a risk-taker.
   
3. They were kind to everyone they met. This one can be tricky. It’s pretty easy to avoid being nice, but you don’t want to overcorrect and actively become mean. This might decrease your chances of being serial killed, but it will vastly increase your chances of just getting regularly murdered. We don’t want that either. Gotta find that sweet spot.
   
4. They were popular. Avoid any level of popularity. Being popular leads to being invited places. Being invited places leads to going places. Going places leads to walking home alone in the dark. Walking home alone in the dark leads to being snatched and taken to a predetermined secluded location with a cage and/or a chair and duct tape. Popularity leads to crushed dreams, young parenthood, male-pattern baldness, and being serial killed. Best to avoid it altogether.
   
5. They lived in a small quaint town. Even the most average of Average Joe’s can accidentally stand out in a small town. As we all know, a Los Angeles 2 is an Ogallala, Nebraska 10. The key to being average is being able to blend into a crowd. It’s hard to blend into a crowd of 4. Also, serial killers seem to fit in seamlessly in a small town. Small towns are to serial killers what fraternities are to sexual predators: the perfect cover. Jeffrey Dahmner was known as the local guy that mutilated animals, and it still took them 13 years to catch him. 

I think the results speak for themselves. I’ve never been serial killed, and despite one weekend spent duct taped to a water pipe in the basement of an abandoned YMCA,  I’ve never even interacted with a serial killer. This could be your life too, if you’re unambitious enough to grab it.