Feeling Scared

Warning: this post discusses potentially triggering content about rape culture
It's common knowledge that all women have experiences being afraid of men. When you ask a group of girls about it, every single one of them has a story about feeling threatened, uncomfortable, or afraid for their safety and possibly their life. This isn't acceptable, yet we let it happen all the time.
I have a lot of guy friends, and I love being able to hang out with them and not worry that they might hurt me or take advantage of me. The only problem with this is that sometimes I start to feel too safe. I'm not on guard, and then it really shocks me when certain things happen. No one attacked me, no one directly threatened me, but comments were made. People don't understand how scary simple comments can be. Asking someone if I lock my door at night, continually talking about how you think I'm attractive, mentioning what you would do to me if you could; all of these things could seem harmless, but we don't have the luxury of assuming harmlessness. I've been taught my whole life how to avoid things like kidnapping and attacks. I've been on guard since I was a little girl because it's easier to teach us how to run than to tell people that no means no, and lack of a no doesn't mean yes. We're starting to get there, but people treat it like a joke. People look at feminists and say that they take things too seriously. Some people will read this and think that those comments were nothing, that I'm overreacting.
I don't want to be upset about this. I don't want to think that my friends might take advantage of me and do things to me that I didn't expressly consent to. But in this world, with these people, that's something I can't afford to do. Because if something does happen, when these things happen, society will tell me that it's my fault. They will ask me what I was wearing, they'll argue that I didn't say no enough times, they'll say I acted like I was interested and that I encouraged their behavior. People get so angry at women for being defensive and then tear us down if we weren't defensive enough.
Watch your comments, watch your actions, be aware of how all of that might effect someone else. Because I want to feel safe around my friends, I want to believe that nothing bad is going to happen to me. The moment I start to hear things like what I heard, I can't feel completely safe anymore.
I know that words aren't actions, and that I can't base my opinion on people just off of some stupid comments they made one night. But as much as I try, I can't be the same around that person ever again. I feel like I can't let my guard down, I feel like I have to make sure I don't do anything to make people think that it's my fault, that I brought this on.
In today's world, we're made to feel scared. We need to stop telling people to not get attacked, to not feel uncomfortable, to never go anywhere alone but go in groups of three because two is still unsafe. We need to tell people not to attack, not to make others feel uncomfortable, and to be good to each other. People act like there are these scary kidnapers and rapists and attackers that are separate from us. They're not like us, they're animals. But the truth is they're people, just like everybody else on the surface, and most of the time you don't realize anything's wrong until it's too late.

Don't tell people not to be scared. Start telling people how to not be scary.