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I think these are natural masculine instincts.
Not in other countries.
As for “correctly picking it (implicit threats of violence) up everywhere they go in urban areas”, they misspelled “incorrectly”.
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Cities are safer than ever and suburbanites more frightened than ever.
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Maybe growing up they didn’t understand that the Pink Panther movies were intended to be farcical.
ETA: Sorry! Meant to reply to the original post
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No. It’s anxiety. And whatever the liars say it affects all genders with very little bias and generally merges with any lived trauma to make a whole damned disease as often as it can.
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An example from a few years ago from an American tourist in Canada.
“Subsequent to the online furor over the letter, Calgary Cultural Ambassador Jenn Lutz said in a tweet that the two “very aggressive” men Wawra encountered were simply giving out free stampede passes.”
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I find that people who are unreasonably afraid in big cities, don’t live in big cities. They are unable to gauge real vs imaginary danger. My sister, who has lived in small communities outside of Toronto for the last 40 years, is shocked that I feel perfectly safe walking home alone from the subway at midnight in my neighbourhood.
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Suburban US white dudes are scared shitless of their own shadows anymore.
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And in places where this level of concern is warranted, those instincts are not reserved for men. Everybody feels them.
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Yes! Part of the issue is that women are more likely to own words like “anxious,” or “afraid.” Men on the other hand are taught that they aren’t scared, they are “observant.” They’re not anxious, they’re “vigilant.”
I think men would be more comfortable acknowledging the existence of normal human feelings if we started calling them “tactical limbic responses” and made sure that words like “sad” were featured with aggressive black lettering and lots of extra pockets.
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Ah, that makes sense. I prefer to sit with my back to a wall or, at least, not with my back to the walkway. It bothers me to have people walking behind me. But bothers me less if my partner can see behind me.
I always knew it wasn’t for the “awareness” or whatever bullshit my brother went on about one time. Apparently we also both let our eyes roam a lot at restaurants (his wife noticed). I’m not sure what trauma led to these behaviors, but it makes sense we’d both have the same issues and I’d classify them as nerves or eccentricity and he’d be all “looking for threats”
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Yes. This was a big issue in the NY State gubernatorial election of 2022. NYC is historically safe, but Long Island was freaking out about the city being too dangerous for Snake Pliskin.
I know someone who lived for 10 years in Brooklyn. Then in 2007 she moved to the Trenton, NJ area. Now she watches Fox News and is too terrified to visit the city. I tried to explain that she is being lied to, and she said “I’m not political, I just want to feel safe.” I’m pretty sure I know who she voted for. And she’s an immigrant! From Ukraine!
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It was a question for the Ethicist column, where it actually got a pretty decent response pointing out the problems with the question/assumptions in the question and taking the writer to task. So it was an educational opportunity for the kind of guy who says that kind of thing.
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Above I posted a video about the life of dangerous right-wing troll Steven Miller. It all felt very familiar to me because for a couple of years in high school I was a Steven Miller. But fortunately it was only a couple of years. I grew out of it.
What has been bothering me the most since I watched that video is: Why did this behavior start, and what caused it to end?
Where did it come from and where did it go? I can’t come up with any concrete reason for either, it just was. Is this a normal part of mental development that he has not yet completed? I don’t know, and that really bothers me.
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Some discussion of abusive language involving sex and sexuality aimed at a teen boy… I have not familiar with the guy he’s talking about, but I guess he has some connection to Drake?
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My sister has a lazy eye. She can see with it just fine, but she can’t move it on purpose very well. Mostly it points forwards.
In restaurants, she would be polite and keep an eye pointing at me, but also look around the room with the other eye. Happily, she doesn’t do that as much now.
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I didn’t watch the video, and I really don’t want to watch a video about Miller and how he became the reptilian facsimile of a human he is today. As far as you go, I believe it’s because people make choices while they grow up. For the entirety of their growing up, until they pass on. You made choices to care about people.
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Two implied assertions in there really struck me. One, that men from more rural areas apparently expect (are used to) violent interactions in their lives? (In a way big-city people don’t.) But also - especially - the idea that men are more attuned to the “implicit threats of violence” in their environment than women are? Really? Than women? There’s a level of cluelessness required to even assert such a thing - a real unawareness of the kinds of violence that people are actually subject to (and have a lifetime of developing situational awareness of). Real violence, not the kind of fantasy, action-movie violence that this guy is “ready for.”
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Funny to note that when women are afraid of men in cities the women are often called crazy. When men are afraid of men in cities the women are crazy for not fearing. You see? Women crazy, men sane and rational! Always. Objective reality be damned!!!
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