(no subject)

[stardust_rifle]

god a lot of suburbanite cis women exist in this truly bizarre life-limiting state of paranoia which makes me insane, like yes, i live alone in an apartment, yes, i take the subway by myself, sometimes after dark. yes, i am completely comfortable commuting back home in the dark so long as i've done the commute before, yes, i am completely comfortable going for walks in the evening around my neighborhood, yes, i am completely comfortable riding the bus alone and commuting to places on foot, and every time i actively mention these things to like 90% of cis women who don't live in the city and regularly do them they react like i've just said that i enjoy rolling myself in tartar sauce and throwing myself into lion's dens for fun

Comments

[palominocorn]

I run into this often and it drives me up the wall. I live in a "sketchy" neighborhood (75% People of Color, slightly below average income) and people think I have a death wish because I sometimes walk around at night. Yes, I walked six blocks to take the early bus (4:30 AM). No, I did not get murdered.

What people consider "sketchy" always shocks me too, coming as I do from post-Soviet Europe. People will insist a neighborhood is soooo sketchy, and when I get there it'll be, by the standards of my childhood, upper-middle class. But seriously, I'm a lot more worried about a driver running me over by accident than I am about being assaulted (by a stranger).

[stardust_rifle]

The last one is so true, and people look at me weird when I say that I'm more scared of drivers (and tourists on those horrible silent electric bikes/scooters that have no experience biking in crowds) than being mugged or raped by a stranger.

[palominocorn]

Ah, the bikers. We have dedicated bike lanes. Do the bikers use the dedicated bike lanes? Absolutely not.

People have seriously messed up ideas on what's safe vs dangerous. Acquaintances freak out about a stranger assaulting me, and I still haven't figured out a diplomatic way to tell them "actually, statistically speaking you, a person I have preexisting relationship with, are far more likely to assault me" in response.

But texting while driving is totally fine and I shouldn't worry about it ffs.

[phantasmalpoison]

I am just so angry at this forever. And it really is so often also racism. There was a very popular facebook group at my uni that was always full of girls posting 'suspicious Asian man walked near me, everyone be careful and look out for an Asian man, a man who is Asian, stay safe! We need more police in the area!'

And I really did have bad experiences alone in public, and both were from the continent of Asia; this did not change my worldview! White university students at nightclubs groped me as they walked past when I was in a group far more often, I might add.

Even if they were right about the danger (they're not) I wouldn't let that stop me living my fucking life. Aaaaaaaaaaaaa

[stardust_rifle]

Police honestly freak me out more than Random Guy, honestly. If it's a choice between a complete unknown who might have a weapon and someone who I know for a fact has a gun on them, I'm taking the complete unknown every time.

[wolffyluna]

Yeah, it's baffling. I'm also really confused why people are so frightened of public transport, because in my experience the scariest people on there are... the prosleytisers, and they're just irritating? (Though in some people's defense, there are apparently some areas where there's a sexual harassment problem on public transport so that avoid it, but notably this is an opinion held by people who... have been on public transport...)

I remember one particularly baffling conversation. My aunt was staying at my mother's for New Years, and my uncle had come over for a party. They'd all got drunk enough that none of them should drive, so they walked my uncle back to his house via the suburban bike paths, and then came back. When my grandmother found out she FREAKED OUT. "Don't you know how dangerous that was! What if there was someone scary!"
My mother: "I can assure you, we were the scariest people there... because we were the only people there. It was 2am on a suburban bike path."