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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…
