The Good, The Bad, The Ones That Walk You Home
Sometimes people are good
A little while back, as you might remember, there was a whole debate on whether or not a woman would rather encounter a bear or a man while alone on a hiking trail. A lot of women said the bear, and it was a hot topic on the internet for quite a while (by internet standards at least).
And it made me think of a little story from when I lived in San Francisco.
I was going to school and living in SoMa, an area south of Market Street with some good restaurants and fun bars. I never felt unsafe walking around, even at night. It might have just been stupidity, but when you’re 21, you feel invincible — or at least I did.
To the northwest of SoMa is the Tenderloin district. Although it looks just like the rest of the city, with charming old buildings and bay windows, it’s not somewhere you want to find yourself alone, especially if you’re a young woman at night. It’s a very run-down part of the city, with a large homeless population and high crime rates. Someone told me they saw a pigeon with a heroin needle stuck to it. Not sure if that’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised. It was an area the police seemed to avoid.
I had several classes in a building right on the edge of the Tenderloin. I would walk there in the daytime, sticking to my route and avoiding certain streets. If it was dark when I left, I took the school shuttle back home.
On some days, the shuttles ran perfectly on schedule. But on other days, you had no idea if or when they were going to show up. So one night, I got tired of waiting and decided to walk home. I hadn’t lived in SoMa for that long, and I didn’t know which buses to take. I probably should have looked that up beforehand.
Turns out I didn’t really know my route home, and I was a block or two into my walk when I began to strongly regret my decision. No one was approaching me, but things seemed very off and I felt very unsafe. I was in art school at the time, so I was most likely carrying a portfolio and art supplies. Ready to drop them and run if I needed to.
And just as I’m thinking Oh fuck, get me out of here, a man appeared at my side.
“Where are you going?” He asked me. He was a tall older gentleman who seemed pretty normal.
“SoMa, I live at 7th and Folsom,” I replied.
I didn’t know this man at all, but I knew he was good. He knew I was lost, and I’m sure he could see the terror on my face. I knew he was asking out of concern, and not because he wanted to follow me to my apartment.
“Let me walk you home,” he said.
So we walked through the Tenderloin, making light conversation. He told me he’d worked security for Obama. Was it true? Who knows. I’m sure he told me his name, but I can’t remember.
About a block away from my apartment, I told him I was ok to keep walking on my own. He asked if I was sure, and I said yes. “Ok,” he replied. “Have a good night.” And we parted ways.
For better or for worse, I have always trusted people pretty easily. A good example? I was a Couchsurfing host at one point in my 20s. This meant I let random strangers stay in my apartment for free, much to my mom’s delight.
Apart from one or two awkward encounters, nothing bad ever happened. Nothing was stolen, and I never woke up to someone watching me while I slept. I met a lot of really cool people from all over the world. These weary travelers were always grateful for a place to sleep, leaving me things like a coffee mug or a bottle of wine to show their thanks.
I trust easily, but I’m also very good at reading people, and I can pick up on weird energy a mile away. I can’t always explain why something is off, but I know when it is. My powers are both a blessing and a curse. But the point is, I think I have pretty good instincts.
I’m part of a generation that grew up riding their bikes around the neighborhood and playing baseball in the street. Our parents would drop us off at the mall where we’d entertain ourselves for hours. The internet was still confined to computers, and we weren’t bombarded by a 24/7 news cycle that filled us with hopelessness and despair. We’d go to music festivals and movie theaters without worrying about the unthinkable.
Now, like so many others, I struggle to find a balance between staying informed and retaining my mental health. Every time I open up social media, I see something terrible. I’m not just talking about the political climate. I’m talking about everything. Car wrecks, plane crashes, kidnappings, brain-eating amoebas, some freak disease you’ve never heard of but apparently has a super common symptom like a runny nose and suddenly you convince yourself that you’re dying and AHHHHHH MAKE IT STOP!!
The more technology integrates into our lives, the more aware we become of literally everything. Our brains weren’t ever meant to process this much information this quickly, and that’s a whole other tangent I could go on…but this information overload does a lot to make us incredibly anxious and paranoid about things that might have never crossed our minds ten years ago. It’s downright paralyzing at times. Sometimes I simply want to walk outside and not worry about dying from the aforementioned brain-eating amoeba.
With our brains on higher alert, it stands to reason that we are more reluctant to trust others. Remember when people would hitchhike because it was a relatively safe thing to do? Remember when we’d borrow a cup of sugar from our neighbor and we weren’t afraid that it would be poisoned or something outrageous like that?
Yes, some people in this world are monsters. And sometimes scary shit does happen. There are things happening in 2025 that definitely were not happening twenty years ago, and it’s good to be careful. But I still think it’s a very sad thing that we have all become so anxious and distrustful.
Despite all of this, and despite my own anxiety, I choose to keep trusting people with a healthy amount of caution. I’m not going to leave my drink unattended, and I will always keep my head on a swivel when I’m walking alone — but I’m choosing to believe that most people aren’t out to screw you over. Like that guy from San Francisco.
(Originally published on Medium)