The point here is that the woman has no access to the mens rea - the risks for women occur before getting to know the guy enough to have much any idea what’s in his head. It’s not like creepers are all stereotypical guys with skull tattoos or something.
You don’t need proven mens rea to order evac or hand out bullet proof vests, but you need it to convict a suspect (except when the government is being a douchebag with the courts’ concurrence). Same here.
Think about it in different terms. I walk, and I’ve had strange men offer to drive me wherever I’m going instead of having me walk. I’ve had strange women offer this as well. I haven’t taken either up on the offer - there’s just too many risks with getting into a stranger’s car. I do admit I’ve at least considered it from a woman, because I’m not at a physical disadvantage and there’s a lower probability of certain sorts of criminal intent.
Difficult for me to relate because I’m not American, nor do I live there, and I know you guys are having some violence problems the last coupla decades. So because I grew up here, I’m inclined to trust people on that unless they give me a specific reason not to, especially if they’re female and thus unlikely to take on me and win (and even more unlikely to even try). I might act differently on the other side of the pond, true.
Am I mistreating these people or treating them like criminals, for turning down a ride because I am concerned they might hurt me? Or am I just being cautious about people I don’t know?
No, but you’d be mistreating them if you didn’t keep your mouth and body language under control, talking to them as if they were criminal suspects (contempt, suspicions, accusations, any sort of disparaging remarks or casting doubt on their
personal honesty, intentions, honour).
When the reality is that they become clingy and obnoxious and effectively sabotage any chance they might have had.
True, but the other truth is that people use ‘desperate’ for some sort of compensation (finding someone to call subhuman and treat that way and take it out on that person — the whipping boy, if only emotionally or even only intellectually), feeling like it’s beneath them to tolerate something like that, which should rather be ridiculed etc., where it’s really a normal human reflex that theymselves are definitely not above showing. Except then they don’t notice it or judge it differently.
For the record, it works both ways, and by certain point in life a person who’s been single for a while is going to have been both the clingor and the clingee on numerous occasions.
Really it’s the sort of guy who can genuinely set aside what he wants and value her friendship for what it is, that stands the best chance.
In a sense yes, but that’s also in part the problem of mankind’s contrarian attitude: becoming interested in someone who isn’t interested in you. Because why? Because it hints of someone higher on social ladder than you, a.k.a. Very Eligible Party. Or simply challenge. Either way, it’s sick to the moon.
For the record, it’s freakingly impossibly hurtful when a woman comes to you just the moment you’ve got over her and moved on with your life. It means she gave you unnecessary suffering. On the other hand, if you don’t actually agree to have her at that point (which is often the wiser choice), then it’s easy to become angry over how something has been wasted which both partied had wanted.
(For the record, a simple: ‘sorry, I was dumbfounded and couldn’t think straight,’ or: ‘it honestly took me some thinking,’ would help heal the damage as opposed to playing the timing/freedom/whatever card and pretending it’s okay.)
With this, please understand that I’m speaking way more directly than I normally would. This is meant as an exception for the sake of clarity.
