Post

the bear isn't going to alpine divorce me, faine! (also if it tries murdering me i'm allowed to shoot it in the face; not that i know how to shoot, but you get my point)

Josh Johnson remarked that one woman commented "Well, at least if I were attacked by a bear, people would believe me". Wow. That says it all.

(also he's assimilated into germanness waaaaaay more than i ever have so he'd probably die of dehydration at some basic tourist attraction, possibly in the middle of LA :p)

Certainly not a "he's cool and brave" response as much as a "i have no responsibility to help that idiot" response

This is part of why I had to divorce my ex before I could move out of TX. He couldn’t see the threat to me and my friends, and thought his good job would protect us … from fascism … 😬 Yeah, that’s not how that works.

To be fair, there's a lot of evidence that testosterone contributes to both the overconfidence/risk seeking *and* wears out your body faster (women have the menopause, which aids with the latter)

Like going on Safari for some deer kinda thing and getting trampled by elephants?

When I was in my 20s in a large American city with a reasonably high crime rate, it was exactly these dudes in the social circle who kept getting mugged. Situational awareness. It's not just for girls!

Counterpoint: bsky.app/profile/thea...

After about a dozen easily identifiable mistakes, he reminisces "it's at that point I knew I'd lost control of the situation" (and everyone rolls their eyes because the situation went south the moment he decided to kayak a difficult route out of season with an inexperienced buddy and summer gear)

Though my favourite polar opposite - let’s call him Dave - was 300 lbs of biker tattoos & black leather, who’d decided after looking after his grandma he would go into geriatric nursing. Big ol’ bear, change his life, could end you without blinking but only if you were dangerous. Loved him 🧸 💜💙

Jakarta 1993 I pulled a handsy, irate, and drunk middle-aged Dutch guy (probably younger than I am now) out of a very rough bar, put him in a cab and handed half the cash in my wallet to the driver. 20 mins later he walked back in. The next time he went out through a plate-glass window.

and almost always blame someone else.

This is all spot on but I would add that they treat small, non-heteronormative men with that same attitude. It can challenge the 4x4 gun guy ego to see a (homophobic slur of choice) do things that they find scary. Hiking in grizzly country without a gun, bike touring on desert tracks...

for example, I used to live in Cambodia, and you can guess the demographic of that guy who got shot in the ass by a security guard after he got wasted one night and refused to get off the hood of a government official’s expensive black SUV

They are our strongest soldiers. Very much reminds me how the entire cottage industry of findom probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for mediocre men who have failed upward their whole lives.

in the classic “drunk sailor rolled for his wallet and other valuables” mode?

Say more about this, I would assume that many of these men are bad customers for anyone, the kind that should generally be fired.

Ohhhhh, this is good. Essential oil shit.

#NotAllDodos!

Ahh yes, but you see, minimizing risk and planning for contingencies is woke, gay and for girls. They will simply handle whatever scenario presents itself through the immense strength and ingenuity that comes naturally with being a skinnyfat middle aged white guy born and raised in suburbia

They're really bad at assessing anything, to be fair, because they've never faced consequences for a miscalculation. They also tend to watch stuff that feeds their fears, perhaps in hopes of making them feel more prepared to facing them, while only making themselves more fearful.

In my experience, this is 100% true, and also this is the demographic that is least likely to have practiced any de-escalation techniques.

The amount you get with sober, vaguely paying attention, not at bar closing time, not trying to buy something illegal, and not following a stranger down a dark alley is surprisingly high.

Even in situations where, in any abstract conversation, he would openly admit I'm more knowledgeable/competent than he is ... put us in the moment, and suddenly Boy Brain takes over. Boy Brain never helps, sometimes actively makes things MORE dangerous.

Much of our unearned confidence (us outdoorsy ex-military types) comes from two privileges: To hunt & fish where 90% of the time man is the scariest thing outdoors (no grizzlies or big cats). To fight at the tip of a very long combined-arms well-provisioned spear. Privileged confidence building.

"White men = basically flightless island birds" Riiiiiight. Think you should take a break for a bit.

Reminds me of the Tumblr post about how unrealistic it is that vampires target women, who have less blood and are also more likely to be wary of strangers, whereas you could catch a guy by hiding in a bush and going "dude look at this fucked up squirrel I found"

I was walking back to my hotel at night in Switzerland when I was a teen traveling alone. Now Switzerland of course is a lot safer than the US, but it was dark! I remember feeling I was surrounded, and hearing some rustling and then bells.

As if anyone feels safe around the kind of probably-drunk British men hanging around Paris at midnight.

TBF, the last time I was in Père Lachaise, there _was_ a creepy guy masturbating behind a tombstone. 🤔 But, it being 2 in the afternoon, me & the other lady I was with just shrugged and ignored him. 😏

Clearly dangerous for them then!

Yes. But I read Cyrillic, have a Russian-English map, and did the fucking research, you overgrown boyscout twat.

OMG flashback to when I lived in Ecuador and had to explain that just because I took the bus lots of places by myself did NOT mean that they (American backpacker dude) should take the bus from Ecuador to Colombia because that route went through cartel territory and it was stupid to risk it.

Penguins at a banquet

Meanwhile every woman in that bar, no matter how small she is, has already added the threat landscape with far more nuance and figured out how to escape it (hopefully) should things go sideways.

I spent a lot of my career demanding safety improvements from qualified engineers in our labs. My “I want my 6 year old to be safe in here” was met with “Fool, we are trained and know what we’re doing”. My reply was “and the day you trip, all your training will be good for is to say ‘oh shit’”🙄

Oh yes. Drove with BF from Toronto to Vancouver in 90s, driving someone else's car (when you could do that). He lost his shit when I jokingly let the customs agent search the car. Like dude, getting your hackles up with them or me is not going to help...

(NOT comparing the outer boroughs to international travel, but my mom had turned into a bit of a flightless New Jersey bird 😂)

Men account for 77% of deaths by "accident or misadventure." My husband and I quote that stat to each other whenever we see a man or men doing something stupid. So, you know. We say it A LOT.

Jamaica is actually one of the places I’d feel more at risk traveling alone, just because I would be an obvious foreigner and look like a piñata full of cash and valuables

Did he actually go to Jamaica, or did he stay at a resort the whole time? Because that comment about South Africa sounds like something a resort-only visitor would say.

I still miss the local beat cops from when I worked in a bar in a moderately rough area, in college. We’d see them multiple times a night and I think they had to resort to being physical less than a handful of times the two years I worked there.

The most important skill by far.Being able to talk to people is a skill that never gets emphasized enough.(Understatement)

I have met a number of small women (and some small men) who have 100% successfully and non-violently talked themselves and outwitted themselves out of dangerous scenarios

My experience in the Alps is as a climber and I think part of the issue is the proximity of serious mountains to large population centers along with easy access. So you're more likely to get people there without the necessary background to access risk properly.

Interesting. I wonder if those stats are the same in the states. I’m guessing it’s the demographic that’s not used to having their credentials questioned. So many hiking accidents I read about, the person is reached as an expert hiker. Then I read the details of how it all happened.

Good stat!

I've noticed that footwear is a DEAD giveaway for this demographic. These guys always, always buy the worst possible footwear for the situation for the most possible money.

it doesn't matter where they are, it's always the same.

The dodo 🦤 *is* my spirit animal soooo

Hey! I’m not flightless because I’m white. I’m flightless because I’m fat.

I'm Scottish. Worse, I'm a Highlander. We seldom need to BE "hard men"; our reputation goes before us and does the work for us 😇

Ah, the joy of watching an OPWP blindly walking into poopookaka!

Oh dear

Absolutely. I never bargain in Mexico, even though that’s common there. Also, patronize artisan collectives if you can. You know the piece is genuine and the maker will get the money.

“You gotta haggle or they don’t respect you!” Me: “I’m literally never going to see that guy again in my entire life.” Guy: *walks 7 miles home to his shack, cooks some rice porridge, sits down on the dirt floor* “lol, hey honey you’ll never believe it, this total cuck came to my stand today and…”

Yeah I was like that in Vietnam. Like maybe I got scammed out of a few bucks but also I am not haggling down a dollar when it’s like, deeply fine for me to pay that dollar

True also of men who hike/backpack. They get themselves into shit thinking they know and can handle everything.

I read this post first. I thought this was political commentary.

Big fan of this little guy.

There are certain people who are able to find trouble no matter where they look. Not a great superpower! I'm sure that somewhere there is a woman with this tendency but 100% of the people I know who could get their ass kicked at a Shrewsbury IHOP are male

Skill issue. In that it takes real skill to even stumble across a Dutch motorcycle gang in 1998, let alone get them pissed off enough at you to beat you up.

This is a fun thread *falls backwards thru a glass top coffee table trying to karate kick a wasp*

My brother still lives in the village where we grew up and thinks he's the big man (he's laughed at even by the locals). His bravado would get him killed in even a small town.

If I had a nickel…

It is well known that Cleveland has been a Muslim controlled no-go zone ever since that shawarma place opened up downtown.

I enjoyed reading this and realized I tend to take the himbo approach too. I'm big enough that anyone who wants to mess with someone will pass me over, but am friendly and open enough to have nice interactions with pretty much everyone.

Oh, that's adorable (and I mean that genuinely, not snarky/condescending).

Oh nah, not this time

Yes, the first half of the movie, “Apex,” makes this point - that men think women will trade the vague threat of being alone in nature for the very real threat of sharing space with predatory men. It made me so mad that I envisioned a Purge sequel where only the women are armed.

I grew up in the same place as Callie North. She is probably the coolest contestant on that show IMO. Just basically chilling the whole time lol

The best one of all is the cop that nopes out on night 1 in one of the first seasons.

They're too tough to be cold! They can survive anything through the power of delusional bravado! One man tried to hunt a moose. But all rights, he should have died, but the universe was amazingly kind to him. Then he left the meat out overnight and was shocked scavengers ate it. I can't even.

It really is (there are modes where you never find a gun or ammo) - when you’ve been surviving the wolves, timberwolves and bears for 20ish days & you find a rifle, the change in worldview is almost dizzying, if you think about it. (Even though even a rifle isn’t a guarantee against a bear)

Incidentally this is why Roland is the goat of the show, because he was in the mould of the Mountain Men of the 1800s in terms of skill but also had nothing to prove that he could do it. He just liked living that way. Most of the Tough Guys(TM) who quit need to prove that they are Tough

I don't think it appeals to my *best* nature but boy does it appeal to the rest of me, yeah. those schadens are so very freuded

I have a whole lot of thoughts about people who act like predators and don’t realize they’re prey, and the differences in actual survival strategies in Nature vs. stereotypes.

(i should never say fin, there's always more) I think those guys who are mad women would choose the bear know that they'd be scared of the bear and are SO UPSET because (they think) she's saying she wouldn't be, which makes her better than them at manly things like bravery and puts her above them /

My survival gear is more oriented towards “urban power outage” might have to walk extended distances in unpleasant weather the one survival item I don’t carry enough of for that focus is CASH for if the payment terminals are down I should fix that

I’m not frothing with rage, but I think that’s silly.

The same dudes will also take pride in setting up "rage bait" as they melt down over that meme.