This is called "coping" with your reality. Doesn't remove the fact that your city is still statistically unsafe.
You've been taken in by a lot of false media narratives. Trump said his bit about "American Carnage in our cities" and set about this revival of the tough on crime rhetoric from the 80s and 90s, a time when violent crime was much higher than today.
Your position is not backed by the statistics.
I can 100% assure you it's not crime rates driving this perception. There were pandemic related increases but the trend of the last 30 years runs counter to the narrative.
I regularly stay in SF in SOMA, and the thing that gives the impression it is unsafe is all the violent, mentally ill addicts roaming around accosting people. The last time I was there, I couldn't go a single day of walking two blocks from hotel to office without encountering at least one.
You can deny that reality all you like, but it is a reality.
Most of the car theft crime comes from organized groups driving here from Oakland, not the addicts who largely are shoplifting from Walgreens, etc.
Uber and Lyft drivers in SF often come from similar places. Basically distant cities with less prosperity and fewer job prospects.
Maybe you should work on this "you being afraid" problem rather than question my ability to deal with reality.
Fyi, my brother is a mentally ill homeless person in another part of the state.
You're a very tolerant individual.
to address your immediate example(s), ignoring your obvious hyperbole which shouldn't need to be addressed in this discussion, as it's not related to the types of human interactions the OP clearly described (which you've lumped into your comment in bad-faith, anyway).
i am not sure why you've filled your head with so much fear, or why you've lumped a certain population into a category of subhuman, inferior, and not deserving of compassion, help, respect, kindness, integrity, and understanding -- if you are finding it difficult to make eye contact with people in general, and regularly, let alone sick individuals, this might distinctly be a personal issue, and perhaps one governed more by trauma, fear and sociopathy than basic decency and human kindness.
i mean christ, imagine leveraging children in order to promote a rather uncaring and indifferent treatment about people, who were once also children. obviously there's a discussion here about appropriate behavior and whether or not someone, say a junkie, is behaving appropriately in a given context, but to somehow suddenly subscribe to this notion that once a person behaves inappropriately, they are no longer deserving of basic decency (eye-contact) is appallingly inhuman to me, and privleged.
since you're leveraging children, am i safe in assuming that i imagine you are okay with children being around alchohol, or even participating in the attending of sporting events (american football for example)?
like, am i safe in assuming you have seen children come into contact or be exposed to effects of alcohol or alcholism, where people behave (in)appropriately -- let's be real, the behavior of a lot of drunk fans at sporting events_in_front_of_children_is laughably appropriate at best
or do you stop the buck short once the lifestyle is a couple of standard deviations away from what you find.. "acceptable"?
perhaps if you started viewing people as well, human beings, perhaps... just perhaps, you'll start asking yourself: "how would i as an individual wish to be treated, if i were sick? would i like to be screamed at, ignored, condescended, looked down upon, shamed, ostracized, ridiculed, ..., or would i like to be treated with at least basic dignity?"
i wonder what would happen if we as a society shifted our attitude as a whole a few standard deviations back to a more compassionate middle ground, instead of constantly enabling, perpetuating, and encouraging fear-based/fear-driven relationships and interpersonal interactions.
also as a total aside, i am really curious: just how much personal time have you spent being around addicts/junkies/or anyone living a deviant lifestyle?
Did Bob get killed by perception?
Sort by total for property crime and it's 4th.