“Tales from the hood”:
A couple of weeks ago I was out on my regular walk/run (yet again), some through paths through the woods, mostly through suburban development. It was bitter cold, at least for here, somewhere in the 20’s F.
Men have been so demonized in the popular culture now that just getting past a young woman on the street gets very awkward. Even though I’m out there alone, without a leash, without the implicit testimony that I’ve been neutered/housebroken that is present when I’m with a woman, most of the older women don’t have the extreme anti-male bias and will just say “good morning” or whatever, I do the same and we go on our separate ways. A few have exchanged some meaningless pleasantries, small-talk, one or two have even started up conversations when it came about naturally, and I’ve gotten to know them a little over the weeks and months of even seldom-repeated encounters.
Most of the younger ones, though, are immediately defensive.
There’s really nothing much I can do about it. The facts of the situation are what they are, I’m out walking alone and so are they, I didn’t contrive the encounter and I do have some right to be out there. I usually cross the street in order not to “invade their space” and often say “good morning” as we pass unless they are obviously and pointedly ignoring my presence. I’m trying to supply some reassurance that I really am not a savage of some sort, from a distance… without breaking stride, of course. Reactions vary. Some return the greeting, some cheerfully, some grudgingly, some ignore it completely and stare straight ahead, some visibly flinch away from me.
Whatever.
What with crossing the street to give them space, never breaking stride, and trying to appear polite and cheerful (while making it clear that I’m not overly interested, which is certainly the case) there’s really not a damned thing more I can do to put them at ease.
At some point, it becomes their problem.
Usually, for some reason, the ladies are walking with the traffic instead of against it, so I cross the streets a lot.
On this particular morning, a few miles from home there was a woman out there walking a small dog on a long extendable leash, and her “personal space”, super-extended by the circumstances, encompassed an entrance to a small park that was my usual route, and it was evident that she didn’t see me. She was wearing a heavy white “hoodie” with the hood up in the bitter cold, standing sideways to me looking at her dog (who was oblivious to me, being intent on some smell it had discovered), there was enough breeze that I wasn’t confident of making myself heard without shouting, and it was a brief but awkward situation. I angled toward the park giving her as much space as I could, passed within ten feet of her and kept going- and was surprised that she never had an inkling that I was there. If she had suddenly become aware of me it would have been much more awkward, as it is I got past her and into the park and was probably at least 75 feet away before I think she could have been aware of me, so problem largely averted. Never saw her face.
The REASON that she was never aware of me even as I got close, though, was the hood. The “hoodie” was large on her, she had the hood pulled all the way forward on her head, presumably to help shield her from the breeze, and I’m guessing she could neither hear nor see much of anything that wasn’t within maybe a 45-degree arc directly in front of her. If I had been a threat, she would have never seen it coming.
When wearing hoods myself I’ve been mildly aware of how much it cut down my peripheral vision, especially when crossing streets, but I resolved to be much more aware of the effect in the future. Hood are convenient, but dangerous. They transform you from a person walking through the environment to a walking igloo with someone peering out at the world through the entrance.
One more reason to prefer a hat under all but the most extreme conditions.
– Robert the Wombat