Dating/friends safety; being alone/telling people where you live

[user18530]

Hello lovely Scarleteen staff!

I'm a college junior looking for a little safety advice; (TW: knife, scary date - but no direct threats or violence, toxic masculinity)

It seems like sharing with trusted friends and dates information, like where I live, is both convenient for hanging out and such, and can also be an important safety precaution so if something goes wrong, someone knows where I am and what I'm doing. Problem is, I'm I'm having a really hard time trusting people enough to give that information.

I don't really have any close friends at the moment. So when I make a friend, how do I decide I can trust them enough to be alone together? Or share my address? Or go to their place? Or accept a car ride? Should I check if they are queerphobic first (I'm agender/trans and pan)? Should I wait until I know what they are like when they are angry? Should I wait until I've seen them X times to get a sense of their personality and hopefully by then I'll know if any red flags crop up?

I know firsthand that meeting someone only a few times may not reveal enough; I met a cute guy in my computer science class and saw a few times in public (where he seemed like a perfectly normal friendly person) before meeting at his apartment (I told a friend I was meeting him, hopefully I told them where) because he asked to study before we go to the planetarium. A little plastic splinter on a chair in his apartment was annoying him, so he gets up and goes to get something, and starts telling me not to be scared. I start getting a little scared, but I wait to see what was up. He pulls out this really fancy, really scary, clearly-not-a-kitchen-knife gang member looking knife. I wondering why the **** does he own that, and why is he bringing it out? Would leaving right now upset him while holding that thing? Do I have a clear path to the door? Why would he think it's appropriate to take that out? He starts using it to remove the splinter from his chair. He could've ignored the splinter, or covered it, or gotten scissors. It makes me wonder if this is the sort of thing abusers do; testing the waters and normalizing smaller dangerous behaviors... When I asked him why he had a knife like that, he replied that he just thought it was cool, and "boys like knives". So a short bit of awkward conversation later, and I lied I wasn't feeling well and decided to go home, he said my sudden change in plans was odd, and I felt safe enough to admit I was actually leaving because I didn't feel safe because of the knife, and left.

So yeah, that was a thing.

I want to be able to prevent an experience that scary from happening again, but I can't really think of a practical reliable way to actually do that. Sure, he didn't threaten or hurt me, but that feels a bit weak of a reason to not take precaution. I'm wondering if it was an unusual bad experience that spooked me into being a little paranoid, or if I'm being reasonable. What are the odds that my first and only date with someone since high school would be that bad? So yeah, I don't exactly have the same safety net I had in high school; parents, classmate-friends, band-friends, etc. So how do I build back up a social safety net as an independent adult and trust people with stuff? How the heck do other people go out to clubs and bars and invite people home they just met and feel safe enough? I went clubbing with some friends one spring break to see what this "college experience" thing they liked so much was about and ended up crying because apparently it's "normal" in crowded clubs for strange men to try to dry hump you from behind if you look like a woman.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit I feel safer considering befriending/dating women and queers. I feel embarrassed because I kinda am making an assumption about men as a group here, but I can't deny that this is how I feel either, given men are statistically more likely to be the perpetrators of violent crimes, toxic masculinity, my negative experience with knife boy... How can I feel safer around men? How hard should I try to?

I'm also familiar with some of the stats for queerphobic harassment and violence, which doesn't help matters any. I'm not out to many people yet, although I think it'd be awesome to get to a point where if I feel like talking about it, I will, and I'd like not to have to plan out when it's safe enough to tell people (under most circumstances, I'm aware there'll always be exceptions), but I'll see how this goes.

So yeah, thanks so much for reading. I do have a therapist who I'm working with to help me come out to my family, so odds are good I'll discuss this with him as well. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! I don't expect you to touch on everything I mentioned here. If only one thing, perhaps just talk a bit about deciding when to trust someone alone/with my address/with transportation? Thanks again! Gosh, the smiley seems so silly given all the serious stuff in here, but yeah, I'm in a good mood right now

[Heather]

I hear that what this person did scared you, but it doesn't seem to me like he was doing anything that signaled any kind of red flag for abuse. In fact, from where I'm sitting -- which is obviously only my perspective based on what you've posted, so I may be seeing things differently than they happened -- him telling you not to be scared tells me that he didn't want to scare you, and he just happens to have a knife he uses and likes to use for stuff.

I get that this was a bad date for you because you didn't feel good in this part of the experience, and that's valid. But what I don't see here is any way to try and figure out how to avoid things just being or feeling weird sometimes (I could write a book of weird dates I've had in my life!). I don't see a need to get super-concerned about your safety based on this...

But. You do. And you, like anyone else, have a right to be concerned about your own safety in any kind of interaction. In other words, there's nothing wrong with wanting to go about your life assuring that you are and feel as safe as possible. That's always valid.

I think the short answer is that only you, like all the rest of us, can figure out what kind of pacing feels right for you with a given person -- as this really is all about specifics, rather than something we usually can figure out broadly or universally -- when it comes to building trust and being more vulnerable. But maybe something you have learned form this is that hanging out alone in someone's place after only meeting them a couple times feels too soon for you: maybe you feel better about more time hanging out in public places with someone before going somewhere with them alone.

Really, a lot of this is just about paying attention to our own feelings in interactions and relationships with people based on that specific person and how we feel with them. If we want to hold up on giving out any kind of personal information, accepting a ride, going to someone's place, we all get to do that. There's no universal right or wrong here, this is just about what feels best for you.

I also hear you saying you generally feel less safe with straight men. That's okay: those are your feelings, and the stuff you're asking about isn't about infringing on anyone's rights or liberties, it's just about YOU and what YOU want and feel best about in your personal interactions. If it turns out you need more time when it comes to trust with straight men and less with women and queer people, that's okay. You don't need to feel bad or embarrassed about that.