The Bear or the Man? If Only There Were Fewer Creepy Men

The decision should be easy, but for many it's not.

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A hypothetical question was recently posed on TikTok. Screenshot HQ (the account's name) asked a group of women whether they would rather run into a man they didn't know or a bear while walking in the forest. Six out of the seven women interviewed chose the bear.

The interview wasn't a scientifically controlled study, but the video went viral, with thousands of comments and memes of bears circulating the internet.

I asked myself how I would answer. My first thought was: How far away was the bear, and could I outrun it?

The option of picking a man weighed heavier because I could not assume this was a good man.

Good = Safe

I became curious about my reluctance to choose the man over the bear after I read fellow Substacker

Jess Piper

's story last week. She shared a memory where she rejected a stranger's advances at a gas station and pulled away, thinking she'd gotten away safely. As she was driving, her tire suddenly became flat. While her car wobbled and swerved, the stranger from the gas station followed behind her in his car. She got home safely but discovered someone had sliced off the tire’s valve stem. Read her terrifying account here.

The moral of her story is that there are still men who won't take no for an answer.

I learned early that I should keep my mouth shut when men behaved badly. A neighbor visited my parents' home frequently and said sexually suggestive things to me as a young teenager. I didn't know how to respond, but my body reacted, with my face and ears turning scarlet. Later, when I told my mother what he said, she dismissed it, saying he was just a "dirty old man." Her consistent messaging was men were disgusting, my father included, and I would have to deal with it.

When a high school boy felt rejected by me, he mailed a letter to my home filled with profanity and sexual violence. At 14, I was stunned, never comprehending how his words could have combined in such a reprehensible way. My parents were also shocked and told their friends about it, seeking advice and concluding that they should talk to the boy's parents.

Ultimately, they did nothing.

I handled it myself, not because I was brave, but because my girl tribe demanded it. (To read about how my friends empowered me, read the Medium story here.)

Maybe it was a good lesson in sticking up for myself because, in the end, I learned what a shitty little coward he was. He was Creep #2.

The following year, I got my first job at Dunkin Donuts. On the weekends, teenagers ran the place. I worked the counter. Peter was my 16-year-old coworker who made the donuts at night and on the weekends when the full-time baker was off. Although I thought he was kind of cute, I usually didn't interact with Peter, but on this day, I had to talk to him about a pending order.

I found him in a dimly lit backroom where mounds of wet dough lay on a long paper-lined table. Dozens of pornographic images of women were taped to the walls. I'd never seen the innermost parts of women so provocatively presented before. The women's expressions seemed paradoxically pleased with themselves.

But I didn't want to look at them or, for that matter, Peter's smirking face. I stammered out the message about the order and ran out.

I was only 16, and my creep count was already up to three.

By the time I was twenty, I had met number Creep #4. I worked at a pizzeria a block from the beach on summer breaks from college. My boss, Vito, was having an employee meeting with me and my coworkers gathered around a restaurant table. I had the misfortune of sitting next to a straight-off-the-boat goomba, not an employee, but a 40-ish Italian guy wearing a thick gold chain with an Italian horn around his neck who was a friend of Vito.

My heart stopped when I felt his greasy hand land on my thigh.

"Get your hand off me, " I hissed while my boss droned on. The Italian Stallion's spat out an indignant reply, "Dell me—a man has never tahcht you theh befooah?"

I shoved him off igniting an inferno inside me.

The fifth creep appeared a month after my college graduation. In the early hours of a summer commute, I sat on the elevated train, biding my time before my stop. The train had emptied in Center City, and now there was only one other passenger in the car with me as we traveled to the end of the line. A man sat across the aisle, diagonally, continuously turning his head to look back at me.

For some inexplicable reason, beads of sweat ran down his face. It wasn't even hot out yet.

I couldn't understand it. What was wrong with this guy?

That's when I caught a glimpse of something horrifying. His man part was exposed, and he was stroking himself. At first, I froze in terror, but then I bolted, sprinting into another car while the train was moving, an action I was petrified to do under any other circumstance. Falling between railcars was a better alternative than remaining near that disgusting man.

When I got to work, I was not ok, and sat at my desk with my heart in my throat, trying to forget what had happened.

These five men left their mark on the first quarter of my life as a young woman.

The events happened in the 1980s when men felt freer to violate women with their words or their touch, while rarely suffering consequences. I could fill several more pages of the ensuing decades where I was groped or made to feel afraid in the presence of a man.

Before you ask where I lived at the time these things happened, four of the events happened in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Vito’s Pizzeria was located at a beach town in South Jersey.

I always thought the male gaze would wane as I aged, but I won't lie.

Last year, for my 60th birthday, my husband threw me a party. During the event, my friend's husband grabbed my ass not once, but twice.

Happy Fucking Birthday to me!

I continue to receive propositions online, as does every woman I know. If you want to know why post-menopausal women are filled with rage, this is it.

My most fervent wish is that world would be a safer place for my daughters and granddaughter, but it’s not.

So, a bear or a man? I’m still considering my answer to the question. I still don’t know-Who runs faster- a bear or a man?

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Thanks for reading, friend! I’ll be headed to Greece and Portugal in the next few weeks, and I’d love to mail you a postcard on my travels. Send me your address in an email at info@thepebbleinyourshoe.com or simply hit reply to this email.

Please know that I will keep your address safe from any and all creepers!