The Bear Or The Man

When the pop argument on whether women would rather be left with a bear or a man started, I didn’t make any comment on it; mostly because I was conflicted. I kind of understood why women were saying that they’d rather be left alone with a bear but it didn’t seem that realistic to me. Surely, you could fight off a man better than a bear?

Not all men are bad, the trouble is we don’t know which ones are, so the weighted questions for me were; what kind of bear? How hungry is the bear? How wild is the bear? How willing am I to gamble that it would be a reasonable man? I spent a little under an hour on Google and with ChatGPT trying to understand my options, if I ever stood face to face with a bear. My chances of survival aren’t zero but I still couldn’t reconcile picking a bear over a man.

Then something happened…

I woke up one of those nights to a man that I didn’t know save for a polite interaction in the earlier evening of a smile and a hello, trying to get into my bed. I was terrified and a bit confused because I was unsure what was going on. I mean, I was just waking up. He ran away and from the figure scrambling in the darkness I knew he was the one. I was frozen on my bed. I wasn’t sure of what to do next. Too terrified to even touch my phone or call out to any one. There was also the complication of him being a black man and even in my fear, I was reluctant to raise an alarm because I wasn’t sure how that will end and I couldn’t live with the guilt of a fatal ending. I was frozen. I had not done anything to encourage this man to come to meet me. Had he lost his way? Was he a sleep walker? He had asked me earlier if I wanted some alcohol, I declined then he asked me if I didn’t drink, I just replied that I wasn’t interested in drinking. He looked at me funny and asked if I was even up to 18, I laughed but had a quick mental inquiry as to why he was asking if I was 18, not 21; the legal age for drinking. Why had he been trying to get into my bed? I couldn’t lift myself from the bed because I didn’t know if that will make me more vulnerable. If you know me, you know I have plans for many scenarios of things but I had never had a plan for this. The people nearest to me were other men and I was too terrified to move from my bed to find any of them to let them know what had happened but also terrified because I didn’t know if telling them will make them realize how physically vulnerable I was realize and what that meant for my safety.

While I was trying to make a sense of what had happened, he came again. I mustered the courage to ask him what he wanted. He was shocked I was awake, then mumbled something about looking for his phone. I told him sternly that I wasn’t with his phone and that he was bothering me. He left. I was now even more terrified and confused. Was he trying to rob me or was he trying to rape me? How stern am I allowed to be in other to not escalate the situation to my detriment? What if he had a gun? I needed a plan for if he had a gun because I was going to fight to the death if he was going to rape or rob me. I was no longer as frozen after I had told him off but still too terrified to get up from my bed. I picked up my phone, texted my cofounders and my youngest brother to explain everything that had happened in the past couple of hours. They were upset but because they are physically distant from me couldn’t help. I felt comforted knowing that if I died, someone will know how. He would come back again and meeting that I was awake, would notify me that he had found his phone and came to tell me so that I wouldn’t be bothered anymore. I began to gaslight myself that he must have lost his phone and had suspected I took it, except that I was so sure I saw him with his phone on his hands the earlier times. Maybe he was drunk?

Then I asked myself, “the man or the bear”?At that very moment I thought — maybe, the bear. The bear, even though most likely bigger than me, will want me for food or sport. I would know to protect myself instinctively. I would not be blindsided at any point to think it was reasonable. It would not try to rape or rob me. And I had a pretty predictable plan on how I might survive. This man who didn’t have the threatening look of a bear; he was 5’4 at best, had put a lot of fear and confusion into a 5’8 me in the middle of the night and we weren’t even in a forest! Through the night he’d come often to peep if I was awake, so I left the torch on my devices on. I never moved from the position I was on the bed and never slept.

When morning came and I could hear movements outside, I jumped up only to be met by him again. He asked if I was married and I gave him a confused look, he said he only wanted to ask something. I told him he was bothering me and he said to just answer him. I told him I wasn’t married then he said he was going to be checking out soon but wanted to know if he could get some ‘pussy’. I felt dizzy, nauseous and disgusted. I told him a resounding no. I went back to the rest room to throw up, cry and because I felt scared and overwhelmed, texted one of my best friends to narrate the events of the night. She was alarmed and instructed me to report immediately. I dragged myself to the hotel front desk to report all that happened. They apologized, said they would take it up and moved my room.

The man or the bear? I still can’t say for sure now that there’s neither a threatening man or bear before me. But not being sure, is in itself the huge problem. The woman or the bear is easily, the woman. Wouldn’t we love to be such an easy choice for the man? And for the women that said the bear, it is not that the danger of being alone with a bear is lost on them, it is that it is a predictable type of danger. There’s no misplaced trust, no unpredictability, no social navigation needed and the worst thing that could happen is that they would die. If you thought that they were extreme, I would love you think about why we even have this comparison at all.