In Defense of Walking Home Alone
My Fraught Relationship with Self-Defense
I’ve never really been one to believe I was being followed.
I take heed, sure. I inhabit a body labeled woman in a world of increasing allowances for men. I see all the same self-defense TikToks as you.
“Switch up your patterns, ladies. Don’t go to the same places at the same times via the same routes. Don’t be predictable.”
When I moved to New York, my mom’s cousin (a woman in her 60s whom I see once a year) was very adamant about getting my new address so she could send me pepper spray, both in its traditional form and also in a “Gel”(?).
I gave the gel to my little sister and affixed the spray to my keychain, but it was confiscated a few months later by TSA, never to be replaced.
I have a Birdie alarm, which was a thoughtful gift from my grandfather. I’ve never used it for reasons other than personal curiosity or demonstration to friends, but the chirp isn’t as piercing as it once was. I vaguely intend to look into replacing the batteries, but it’s not a priority.
It’s not that I’m careless. I value my life and have the natural impulse to protect it. I trust my gut. I just, by rule of thumb, try not to let a suspicious mind overrule it.
Perhaps it’s a sort of self-defense mechanism in itself, but when my inner dialogue skews that specific brand of anxious, I internally argue that it is actually especially self important to harbor this constant, lurking belief that someone could be following me —choosing me, hunting me.
The other, unsilenceable, sarcastic part of my brain thinks that if someone is going through all that trouble to learn my idiosyncrasies, if they take that much of an interest in me, then maybe they deserve whatever they mean to take.
Awful thought, signed, the ultimate pick me <3
I don’t mean that, of course. I just mean that if I’m going to die —or worse— in some fashion that involves foul play I’d rather just do it. I don’t want to live in fear of it happening until the moment it finally does.
And besides, why me? For my general health and wellbeing, I have to believe that a random man on the street is not thinking about me more than the cursory ogle or catcall. Anything more is both self-aggrandizing and presumptuous.
(I reserve that level of paranoid, narcissistic thought for ex lovers and ex lovers only.)
I think self-defense is a waste of my energy.
It feels itchy to admit that, but there it is.
My protest isn’t detached from reality, and it isn’t full stop; I’m just hesitant to invest in a system that posits me as the prey.
It’s why all of my personal safety weapons were gifts I haven’t replaced; why I’ve never enrolled in a self-defense class; and why when a “This Could Save Your Life” video pops up on my feed, I watch it once, take it with a grain of salt, and move on.
I won’t bury my head in the sand, but I also won’t doomsday prep for predators. Assault isn’t an inevitability I need to adjust to. This isn’t a world I will accept.
It is partly this train of thought that informed my decision to start walking 40 minutes home at midnight the other night, partly the train itself —that pesky, unreliable thing.
It had been one of those glorious nights of candlelit conversation reserved especially for new friends: when they don’t yet know all your stories or opinions, so you get to articulate them anew. It’s not comfortable yet, so it’s thrilling— introducing yourself in layers, exactly as you choose; being received at each peel with affirming enthusiasm. It was all punctuated by “okay, just one more glass” while the wax sticks burned down to their bases.
I was still in this fuzzy state of red wine warmth when I missed the D train at West 4th Street and realized the F wouldn’t be coming. My phone was operating at a lagging 3%, but I didn’t consider pausing my music. Of course, I should’ve asked for a charger at some point during the aforementioned five hour conversation, but like I said, it was with new friends and rather engrossing.
I climbed back up the dirty Subway stairs —across the tiny mounds of old gum, flattened and black with traffic— and searched for a shuttle that Apple Maps claimed was coming. My phone died, music cut off mid-chorus, and I was unclear of where exactly the bus would stop. I asked a stranger under an MTA awning:
“Is this where the F shuttle bus is coming?”
“I’m sure,” he said with a shrug, very helpfully.
As you’ve probably deduced, reader, this was not where the F shuttle bus was coming.
After one more failed attempt to board the bus and persisting confusion on where *exactly* it was picking up from, I decided to start walking in the general direction of my home. I reasoned that I knew where I was and I felt safe enough (whatever that even means). Also, I’ve been on a kick of saving money and the thought of paying for private transit was really going to kill my buzz.
So I set off, and I told myself I could always hail a cab if I needed to.
Naturally, a long walk home after drinks and good conversation has a sort of romantic quality to it. The only thing that could have made it better was operable headphones.
As it was, all I had were my thoughts, which depending on when you catch me, can be an especially poetic place to be.
I passed Washington Square Park and realized I was retracing the steps I took to a first date last summer —my idea having been that walking would be good for jitters.
There were the purple NYU flags; windows into dormitories, classrooms, and the alternate universe I like to imagine from time to time: what if I’d moved here sooner?
In the dark patches between streetlights I used my peripheral vision more; felt the prop of my AirPods in my wind chapped ears. Even dead, it was nice to appear to be listening to something, so as to look unapproachable and, bonus: still actually have my sense of hearing.
I passed the SoulCycle studio I’d walked to from the opposite direction more than once, and my depth perception adjusted accordingly. Oh, easy, I thought.
Then a pair of lesbians started trailing me —or else, two women locking arms— and I knew I was safe.
I turned onto Bowery and felt the comfort of familiarity; passed the restaurant where I celebrated my 24th birthday and saw they still had decorative pinecone garlands out, reminiscent of Christmas; then an apartment entryway harboring an unattended stroller —an act of goodwill, a beacon of belief in people’s humanity.
It was past midnight on a Tuesday in lower Manhattan, and on some street corners I was the only witness. It felt, unrealistic but quite hopefully, like no one in the world had malintent towards me. We —the wind, the empty taxis, the rustling trash— were living in harmony.
Then, turning onto Houston, I saw the taillights of an F shuttle bus at 2nd Avenue and sprinted to catch it. After all, my legs were cold, and I’m not a masochist.
I turned my keys in the three locks between my apartment and the street, breathed the customary sigh of relief. “Home <3,” I’d usually text my friends as I climbed the marble stairs, but again, these ones were new. And how to account for the almost hour it’d been since I left?
I greeted my cat instead, put my phone on the charger, took a quick shower —wished it was warm enough to open the window. Sat down to write about my walk.
I feel this way sometimes about New York: rather possessive, like it belongs only to me. It’s ridiculous, of course. New York City belongs to no one but itself. And so I guess in a weird way it’s everyone’s all at once.
My grandfather, the one who gifted me the Birdie and sends me anecdotal NYC Reddit threads, sometimes asks me in a string of run-on sentences: “So, how are you? Are you still liking it there? Do you feel safe?”
It’s a tough question.
A woman was set on fire in the Subway. I know someone who knows someone who was stabbed last week. Depending on your level of attention to it, the city can read quite macabre.
But then again, so does the idea of living in perpetual fear of it.
The Subway is also where I see humanity on grand display every single day. People helping single mothers carry a stroller down the gum-littered stairs; commuters singing along to a chorus started by a busker because we can’t help ourselves.
I feel ardent hope much more than I do fear.
The instances of violence, very real, are usually random and completely out of our control. All I can do is my best to keep my eyes open, be aware.
The ones the TikToks enshrine —the idea of being singled out and followed— are largely inaccurate, inflated.
For that type of crime the reality stands: most women know their perpetrators. To some degree, we trust our rapists. Pulling brass knuckles in an alley isn’t going to save me from assault; that’s not usually where it happens.
Everyone should do what they can to live in this world with as much peace as they can muster. For me, self-defense, and preparation for the worst outcome, is not the way.
Being a woman does often feel like I have a target on my back. But sometimes, on a small scale, pulling a jacket on over it and going out into the world anyway can be a fun experiment, a brief reprieve. Bonus points if there’s music.
Since ur ripped now I think ur fine
Personally I would take you off the street bc I do think you’re that beautiful amazing and awesome