I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

There are things as a man that I will never fully understand about women. Aside from the obvious like childbirth and Tupperware parties, I’ll never fully understand what it’s like to be a woman out alone. I observe it all the time from the outside, however. One time when I was golfing, a young woman was jogging down the adjacent road and a man in a car was just casually driving at her speed talking to her through the open window, which from my perspective was totally creepy and pretty much gave me the heebie-jeebies.

That really got me to thinking how strange and creepy the world can be, especially relating to my sister who lives on her own in a city. She has to travel by herself across the city to and from her job every day. If I had to do that, it would probably be more of a minor annoyance than anything else. However, her necessary steps included acquiring pepper spray, speaking to a police officer to find the safest route, and upgrading to a smartphone just for the GPS feature. Add to all this that she’s only five feet tall and good-looking, and she’s definitely a prime target for creepy guys to prey on. (The joke’s on the creepy guys though, since she’s a personal trainer, basically works out for a living, and once defeated the men she works with in a pushup contest.)

This isn’t to say that men don’t need to worry walking around cities and parking lots by themselves, but it’s just such a strange phenomenon to me that women have so much more to worry about. I can attest that sometimes men think with things other than their brains, and it’s often difficult not to look for more than a second or two when a pretty girl walks by. Now, I don’t know the severity of this issue, but I definitely find it concerning that it has to be an issue. Point being, I think it stinks that women have to deal with walking around with a near-constant sense of being watched, and I give women all the credit in the world for it.