I love that people seem incredulous that the answer to the man vs bear debate (if you haven’t been keeping up, a simple question was posed: “Would you rather your daughter be alone in a room with a man or a bear?”) would be the bear, without hesitation. It’s simple, really:
The bear didn’t stand in front of a 17 year old girl it was supposed to protect and bring her entire life crashing down. It didn’t sneak into her bedroom at night, pretending to be drunk and confused when caught. It didn’t repeatedly expose itself to her. It didn’t stand there, facing her, telling her it was her fault, she provoked it, even invited it, when it decided the shadow game it had been playing was enough and invited her to actively join. It didn’t call her a liar. It didn’t threaten her. It didn’t tell her it owed it. It didn’t send her into a tailspin of trauma and depression that would require years of therapy, countless medications, and an anxiety disorder. The bear didn’t cause her to doubt her own memory or wonder what else she repressed and missed. It didn’t cause her to blame herself for a family falling apart, to give up a dream and settle for more time in a small town so she could help and support, putting her dreams of graduating high school and going to a prestigious university on hold. It didn’t get to walk away scot free, continuing its life with no contemplation that what it had done was wrong and facing no consequences.
It didn’t force her to stay quiet years later when other bears became aggressive, because after all, it was her fault and she had put herself in that situation/asked for it/owed the bear.
The bear didn’t cause her to sit in traffic on a morning commute nearly two decades later and relive every terrible moment, crying for a broken inner child, as she was forced to contemplate why, unequivocally, she’d take her chances with a bear every single time.
#ichoosethebear
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