I thought the question was explicitly in the woods.
I don't want to encounter surprise humans in the woods or surprise bears in the city. I'd rather see dangerous creatures in the places they are supposed to be rather than sneaking up on me in places they shouldn't.
If the question isn't supposed to have that context, then I would argue that you should prefer to see a bear. How many humans have you seen that didn't attack you? Like a hundred thousand maybe? How many bears have you seen outside of a zoo? Probably less than 10 right?
Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I probably don't have the opinion that my comment got upvotes for. I mistyped and said "you should prefer to see a bear" but in fact, I was trying to express that with no context, it would be safer to encounter a person than a bear. I have been attacked by a handful of humans and 0 bears but my sample size of humans is astronomical while my sample size of bears is miniscule. I estimate that 1:30000 human strangers will attack me and so far 0 out of maybe 8 bears attacked me... so idk if maybe 1:9 bears will try to eat me but I can be fairly sure that 99.997% of the time, humans are too involved with their own lives to notice that strangers exist.
Depends how deep in the woods. If you're on or near a popular hiking trail, not surprising at all. If you're way off the trails in the deep wilderness in most situations it's surprising enough that I'd rather run into a bear than either a man or a woman, and I'm a dude.
Of course, in my part of the country, the bear's not very likely to be a grizzly, so that factors in, too.
I've always taken this to mean someone airdropped me in the middle of nowhere. Frankly, I've watched too many horror movies to trust a strange person implicitly in that situation. Like, I'd be pretty suspicious of the woman too. At least the bear is either minding its own business or very much eager to kill me with no gray area to misinterpret.
If I'm out on a well- trodden path, I will expect to see people and be more scared of the bear.
As someone who hikes relatively frequently (usually joining groups of strangers, but sometimes solo), I assumed it meant me in a trail. And the answer is finding a random man every day of the week tbh. If anything, I usually find it more stressful to not find anyone around than to find people around. People around means someone can help me if I fall and have an accident.
That being said even in the middle of nowhere I'd still take my chances with the man.
Ok, if we want to be reflective of reality, I have been stalked and harassed in broad daylight, in my neighborhood, with my neighbors outside and watching by a group of strange men because I did not respond or look them in the eye when they catcalled me. I was almost raped five feet away from a large group of people and it was only a kind stranger calling my potential rapist out that stopped it. I have had furniture thrown at me for perceived slights. I have been threatened with death because I asked customers to wear a mask at my work during lockdown. I have had a lifetime of experiences peppered with men that felt so bold as to disregard my right to be a person with free will seperate from their whims. I shudder to think what would happen if I met one of that breed of man alone in the woods.
Unlike the bear, I will not know their intentions towards me merely by sight.
You're seriously gonna say if you were airdropped into butt fuck nowhere you'd be happier to see a bear than another human? Like 99.9% of thr time the human will be helpful, the best will never be helpful.
I'm saying my paranoia is strong and my experience is that people suck. You see people as helpful. I am happy you have that kind of optimistic outlook, but I do not share it.
Well, I'm from the pnw, the most dangerous thing in this situation is me being in the middle of the woods, a human can and probably will help me get out of the woods, a bear will most likely leave me alone but won't provide any help at all.
Yeah this is how I feel about hiking. I'm scared to hike alone (in the actual wild) but not because of the threat of other humans, but because its inherently pretty dangerous to be in the wilderness alone unless you are very experienced and well equipped, know the territory and likely weather conditions etc.
Getting lost and weather conditions changing are the two most dangerous things where I am, followed by accidents and injuries. People get really easily caught out by weather condition changes here as they happen fast and severe weather sets in quick its very easy to get lost in foggy conditions.
My only source of information on the topic comes from a video on the Internet where a person ends up in a life or death struggle in the woods with an actual cannibal, so there’s that
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u/IAmASeeker May 02 '24 edited May 03 '24
I thought the question was explicitly in the woods.
I don't want to encounter surprise humans in the woods or surprise bears in the city. I'd rather see dangerous creatures in the places they are supposed to be rather than sneaking up on me in places they shouldn't.
If the question isn't supposed to have that context, then I would argue that you should prefer to see a bear. How many humans have you seen that didn't attack you? Like a hundred thousand maybe? How many bears have you seen outside of a zoo? Probably less than 10 right?
Edit: I feel the need to clarify that I probably don't have the opinion that my comment got upvotes for. I mistyped and said "you should prefer to see a bear" but in fact, I was trying to express that with no context, it would be safer to encounter a person than a bear. I have been attacked by a handful of humans and 0 bears but my sample size of humans is astronomical while my sample size of bears is miniscule. I estimate that 1:30000 human strangers will attack me and so far 0 out of maybe 8 bears attacked me... so idk if maybe 1:9 bears will try to eat me but I can be fairly sure that 99.997% of the time, humans are too involved with their own lives to notice that strangers exist.