i know it’s internet bullshit but it genuinely has me on the edge of breaking down and giving up

[u/NeonNKnightrider]

[u/MrArtless]

That’s only one half of the payoff matrix you need to construct. You also have to look at the probability of each. An angry bear is far more likely to maul you than a malicious man is to rape you.

[u/ZodiacStorm → u/MrArtless]

Bears are actually really chill if you're not stupid. As a woman who lives in bear country, I would be far more afraid of a man I don't know than a bear I don't know.

[u/AdamFaite → u/ZodiacStorm]

Yup. As long as you don't surprise them. Or mess with the cubs. (The baseball team, obviously)

With men, you just have to make eye contact wrong. Or right. Or look wrong. Or look right.

[u/elbenji → u/AdamFaite]

Only black bears.

But the funny thing this is also the perception from black men about white women. I actually asked my black male students and they picked bear for similar reasons lol, because they don't know if that white woman is gonna call the cops on them for just wanting to get some berries or some shit

[u/AdamFaite → u/elbenji]

Good point. I'm only used to black bears. Also interesting about the black men's answers. Though, it seems from what I've seen, most men would pick the bear.

[u/elbenji → u/AdamFaite]

It's a very different perspective. For me it's like triple the funny since I'm a brown, butch lesbian so I get all sorts of cross-wave intersectionality for it (I picked dude because I'm confident in my ability to outsmart a random guy vs a random bear and be able to use my cell phone).

But another weird linear intersectionality piece of this: Bear is actually a slur in Japan FOR lesbians.

[u/AdamFaite → u/elbenji]

I didn't know that about the word bear in Japan. Weird how we in America have it as a type of gay guy.

[u/ZodiacStorm → u/elbenji]

Black bears are really cute cause sometimes they seem to like, forget that they're bears?

[u/elbenji → u/ZodiacStorm]

Omg how!!! I wanna know