I can somewhat agree with that.

But no one here is suggesting any of this is grounds for completely disregarding a person or a demographic of people.

I would turn down that first at-home date, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make a counter-suggestion. And even then I would risk offending her by revealing my unwillingness to immediately trust her.

And if she does take offence, that isn’t exactly telling of her having a healthy understanding of how the situation might look to me. Even as I turn her down, it’s not like I’ve already decided she’s a crazy person.

The people getting mocked are ones who feel they’ve been wronged by this kind of caution, for example by getting an overly careful and roundabout “no”, taking offence because someone would assume the worst about them. That they wouldn’t have taken a straight answer well.

In reality, it was going to be a “no” either way, and she was perfectly within her right to do it carefully with a complete stranger.

Throwing around the stats and explanations is to help us understand. The point is that the numbers are such that vulnerable people do not even have the option of being fair, because if they are, inevitably, they will run into at least one nutcase which will then proceed to explode in their face.

Unfortunately, the real solution here is actually to take it on the chin, because most of the time, it really isn’t personal, or even consequential.

In any situation where two or more people interact, a more vulnerable party has every right to take whatever precaution they feel is needed to be safe, until they know for sure that doing so isn’t needed.

When this is the case, there is nothing to take offence from. It’s not about you.

But it can still hurt, and when you then see stats and stories about violent men thrown around it feels like people are telling you that “they were right about you” and that you should feel hurt.

But that’s not the point. The point is that there are good reasons to be careful. And when someone does so around you, unless there are additional circumstances to consider, there’s nothing there that’s a personal slight upon your character, gender, or anything else.