My Boyfriend is Making Me Afraid to be Alone

ScienceAndCake wrote:

Darwinschild wrote:I think it is easy for a person, particularly a guy, who has never experienced being objectified for having those physical traits tell you that you are letting your boyfriend determine how you think.

I imagine if the situation was reversed and your petite girlfriend tells you that it's not safe for you, as a man, to go out at night because you are ...., you would dismiss her worries much more easily than now.

The "objective reality" is that there are sex differences between men and women as perpetrators and victims of crime. However, that does not mean that, as a woman, you should live your life afraid. You can be smart and cautious about your surroundings without giving up quality of life.

You're missing the point - she has become worried to the point where she's not debilitated with it. We'll ignore for a moment the fact that one constant across all western cultures is that men are many times more likely to be the victims of unprovoked violent crime than women, and we'll focus entirely on the fact that her boyfriend has instilled a worry in her.

She was not worrying about these things before and she was fine. That's because her old level of worry, namely very little at all, is actually the correct quantity of worry. Her new level of worry, which is a perpetual state of hypervigilance, is disproportionate and constitutes an illness, an anxiety disorder if we're going to get specific.

The truth is that, by and large, societies are stable. People aren't raped and attacked for no reason, any society where this was the norm would fall apart or be in a period of temporary but intense war. You don't need to go around hyper vigilant of threats, you need to go around with a reasonable comprehension of the dangers but a healthy appreciation of how unlikely they are. Her boyfriend's actions have caused her to deviate from this ideal middle ground into terror.

Darwinschild wrote:Somehow, I highly doubt that men are more likely to be victims of rape and sexual assault than women. Are you now going to say that more women than men are perpetrators of sex crimes, too?

ScienceAndCake wrote:We'll ignore for a moment the fact that one constant across all western cultures is that men are many times more likely to be the victims of unprovoked violent crime than women...

Darwinschild wrote:Hypervigilence is maladaptive. However, vigilence is not. I doubt anyone in their right mind would advocate hypervigilence.

masquerade wrote:This thread is starting to become derailed. Science and Cake, comments such as "slimy customer" aren't constructive. Science & Darwin, show some respect for the OP and stop engaging in arguments on her thread. You're both actually making the same point from slightly different angles, and I think we get the point now.

Does anyone else here have any constructive advice for the OP to get the thread back on track?