Imma be honest picking the bear feels like True Crime Brain, unless your point is only “Bears aren’t dangerous and it would be cool to see one”

It is the exact same as the white women who have told me they felt afraid for their lives and don’t feel safe in this city because homeless man talked to them in the park once (to be clear this is not an exaggeration, this is a story one of my friends has told me about “almost” getting attacked walking through the park, it was just a homeless man spoke to her once and then walked on the same path for a few minutes)

If I’m walking through the woods and I come across a man, I assume he’s in the woods for the exact same reason I am. Are y’all panicking every time you pass another hiker going the opposite direction?

Bears aren’t scary, but neither are people and if you get scared upon seeing a random guy you need to go to therapy and to stop listening to My Favorite Murder

Well known path: man; assume he’s just another hiker

Obscure/empty path: bear; he will likely leave me alone if I leave him alone

What if the man you run into is also a bear?

okay let's talk about what you should actually do about this. you are presenting hella masc, women are more afraid of you than a bear. you're on a forest path. if you flee from the forest path, that will look worse. do you turn around acting like you forgot something? use your AGGRESSIVE HYPERMASC STOMP to mime going back for your phone? do you say hello as you pass them? do you completely ignore them?

generally when I am on trails alone I just start jogging again if I spot someone way up ahead, but isn't that like charging at them? I just want to make sure we don't interact with each other. because silently ignoring people feels rude when I do it, I am happy to discover people might have thought I was a Netflix serial killer

look, I promise I know what to do in actual social situations. well, I know of SOME things to do. but stuff like this, I don't know.