A bear is a known a danger and really doesn’t care about you unless you piss it off. In fact, loud noises might just scare it away even if a brown bear.

While most men are probably safe enough to have around, enough are unsafe or just generally give off that vibe that women don’t want to be alone with them and a loud noise won’t scare them away. You might “know” you’re safe but they have zero reason to trust you.

Sure she might get someone who wants to work together to be mutually safe and will make efforts to leave her be otherwise, but she might also get someone who stands just a bit too close, who starts trying to “help” just a bit physically, or even who starts to get frustrated when they don’t get some kind of reward for just being some minimum level of decent. And if they’re really unlucky they get someone who just sees the isolation of the situation as an opportunity.

The bear is a known quantity. The man could be anything and there are far too many examples of every part of the spectrum. At least the bear won’t sexually assault her even at the worst.

I read somewhere and like to mention it to other guys when it comes up in conversation about the difference between a man’s and woman’s greatest fear on a date.

The man is usually scared of being laughed at or rejected. The woman is usually scared of being killed.

It kinda puts things into perspective for me.

It’s worth to know that nobody is ever infallible. I’ve always thought that same thing, “I’m a good guy.”. But I’ve learned that it’s better to think, “i may think I’m a good guy, but I need to be careful about how I come off,” because I have said some fucked up things without realizing it.

Like, I have genuinely made some people uncomfortable without me realizing it, and I’ve been trying hard to be more aware of not only the situation I’m putting someone in, but the vibes I’m giving off.

I had a pretty pivotal experience around this realization when I was in my late teens. A buddy of mine and I were driving around town running errands, and we ended up driving past this same woman a couple of times like miles apart. At one point, I rolled down my window and asked if she needed a ride. The look on her face broke part of me. She was terrified of me. I’d never been looked at like that before.

I was so nieve at that point in my life. It never even occurred to me how horrifying 2 guys you don’t know rolling up and trying to get you in their car might be. Neither of had any bad intentions…it was hot as hell out, and we figured she’d been walking for miles at that point. But none of that matters…we were like clumsy giants destroying a village we wanted to visit because we never considered the fact that we were just too big.

I still feel bad when I think about it and that was 20 years ago.

I think you might be right in that idea. One time I was out with my wife at a club show. She got a little too drunk and stumbling. I was walking her out of the club to pick up the metro and go home, when some chick stopped us (her) and whispered something in my wife’s ear.

My wife responded “No, it’s good. He’s my husband.” When I asked my wife what was that about and she told me that she was “checking to make sure I knew you.” My first response was “oh yeah that makes sense. Men suck.” I was low-key glad they checked on my wife though. They had no way of knowing if “I’m one of the good ones.”