A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with at my parents’ house, along with two men who were guests of my father. At some point, the conversation drifted into the safety of life in the city.

My father pointed his fork at me. “This is the bravest woman I know,” he told them, “because she rides the El.”

Look at the media today and you’ll soon realize that women’s issues have come front and center, most recently in the Supreme Court’s decision about Hobby Lobby, and not so long ago with Elliot Rodger’s killing spree and manifesto. Take a look at your Facebook friends, and I guarantee the ladies (and a few sympathetic men) have shared Buzzfeed articles like “29 Things Women Avoid Doing Because We Fear For Our Safety”.

I call out that particular list because it’s the one I read that made me so incredibly sad and so incredibly annoyed at the same time. Sad that women have been given cause to be so afraid that they avoid wearing ponytails and won’t let cab drivers drop them off at their own front door. But annoyed because there seems to be faulty logic at work. A ponytail isn’t going to be the deciding factor for someone who’s looking to attack you. And when that cabbie, who probably doesn’t give a shit where you actually live, drops you off somewhere down the block from your apartment, you now have to walk that stretch home in the dark.

Reading that list, it struck me how little of it mirrored my own experience as a woman. I’m not exactly a sheltered country mouse. As my Dad pointed out to our dinner guests, I live on my own in Chicago. I travel internationally. I am out in the world doing things, and I have yet to be raped and murdered — which, judging by the level of hysteria in lists and articles like that one, is damn near miraculous.

Don’t misunderstand me. So long as women are being denied the right to govern their bodies as they see fit, so long as we continue to raise our boy children with the idea that sex with hot women is their birthright there is work to be done. But there’s a difference between taking a calculated risk and being reckless, between awareness and hysteria. And it feels like we’re starting to stray over the line there.

So I decided to make my own list of things that I’ve done on my own as a woman that have not gotten me raped or killed. A few of them admittedly weren’t all that smart at the time, but for the most part I’ve learned not to dwell on the boogeyman.

I live in Chicago.

The dinner at Mom and Dad’s was the not the first time that someone has painted Chicago in an unflattering mostly criminal light. When I was growing up, we lived in central Illinois in a town of roughly 16,000. It was there that I graduated from high school and that I traveled back to last summer for my 20 year reunion.

“Aren’t you afraid up there with all the gang violence?” my former classmates would ask me, wide-eyed. Despite only being a 3 hour drive away the interstate, they only know Chicago from foggy memories of grade school field trips and, more clearly, ominous stories on the Nightly News with Brian Williams. Visit NBCNews.com on any Monday morning and chances are good you’ll see a report telling you just how many people were shot in Chicago over the weekend. Like the rest of the country, they‘ve bought into the boogeyman story of Chicago being Murder City, USA.

I’m mostly amused by the question when I get it, because Chicago is a very big place. “Let me ask you this,” I reply. “Do gang shootings in Springfield keep you up at night?” Springfield is a 30 minute drive down the interstate, with plenty of corn fields in between. “Because your gang violence is closer than mine.”

What you don’t hear from Brian Williams is that the violence in Chicago is mostly concentrated on the south and west sides. I live up on the north side, which in Chicago terms might as well be the other side of the planet. That’s not to say that things don’t happen elsewhere in the city — some guy got himself shot in the ass in front of my building last summer when he tried to run away from his drug dealer — but those incidents are few and far between in my neighborhood, which is relatively quiet. And that shooting wasn’t exactly random. What do you expect to happen when you piss off your dealer and try to run away? Long story short, I’m not in a bad neighborhood and even if I was I probably still wouldn’t be a target since the gang bangers are mostly shooting at each other and aren’t into random acts of violence themselves.

I ride the El.

Twice a day, to and from work, and occasionally evenings and weekends. And I will swear up and down that it’s a hundred times safer than driving. The strangest thing that’s ever happened to me on the El was when a guy who was really stoned out of his mind got really curious about my Kindle, asked me a bunch of questions about it, then went to another car. Beyond that, my biggest problems on the El are the days when I decide to wear heels and then I’m forced to stand for the entire trip when I’m unlucky enough not to get a seat, clueless tourists decked out in Cubs gear on their way to Wrigley Field who have no idea what they’re doing, and frantically looking for another car when the one that stops in front of me is empty. (You only make the mistake of getting on that car once, then never again.) The biggest actual danger on the El is probably contagion from whatever flesh-eating pandemic is lurking on the floors and handle bars. I try not to think too much about that.

I walk through my neighborhood at night.

My general rule of thumb for doing things at night is that if I’m unlikely to be the only person out there, I’ll take the chance. If I’m walking home from knit night after dark through a relatively safe neighborhood where I’m likely to encounter at least three people walking their dogs and others who, like me, are just getting from A to B as quickly as possible, then the risk of getting attacked is low enough that I’m not going to worry about it. There’s safety in numbers, even when the people around you are total strangers. And a guy walking his dog is probably just walking his dog.

I wear skirts and heels.

And I strut my damn stuff when I do, too, because my legs are kind of great.

I might get a comment from one of the drunks out front of the neighborhood dive bar when I walk by, but those incidents are rare and I mostly roll my eyes. The proprietor of that bar is a woman who is practically the patron saint of the neighborhood. She even has a sandwich named after her at the cafe across the street. And if any one of those drunk morons ever actually tried anything, she would be the first one to kick their ass up and down the street and tell them to never come back. You don’t fuck with her.

But the general reaction from the people I pass on the street when I look so good is complete apathy. About a month ago, I learned the word “sonder”, which, according to the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, is defined as “the realization that each passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

In short, everyone you think of as a possible attacker is completely absorbed in their own issues and thoughts and what the fuck they’re going to make for dinner.

No one really cares that my legs look amazing in that skirt. I am barely a blip on the radar, basically just a moving obstacle on the sidewalk to be navigated around. That is an advantage which allows me to roam the city freely.

I run on the Lakefront Trail after dark.

Here are some facts about the trail which make it a lot less terrifying. First, the trail is well lit. Second, it’s pretty heavily trafficked straight through 11pm, so I’m never actually alone out there. Third, it’s patroled by bicycle cops. Fourth, it runs along side soccer fields and tennis courts which almost always have a game going.

All of these things combined make me feel pretty safe out there. If I’m grabbed, there are plenty of people within earshot who will hear me scream. I’d be a lot more freaked out about running after dark on a country road where I’m not likely to encounter another person. Who would hear me there?

I give my name and phone number to men I meet on dating sites before we meet in person.

One site asked me to tell something I’m really good at. I wrote that I’m really good at finding anything online. Because I am, because understanding how search engines work is basically my job. I don’t meet a guy unless I can google him first, and I give him the same opportunity. That note in my profile is a shot across the bow — if you’re a shady piece of shit, I’m going to find it pretty fast.

But because of what I know about how the internets work, I also know exactly what anyone googling me will find — which is not a lot. I don’t own my home, so my name isn’t on any current real estate records. Mostly you’ll get confirmation of the things that I say in my profile, and if you’re really astute you might figure out what neighborhood I’m in... but I probably already told you that anyway.

As for the phone number, well, if you’re a pest, I know how to block you. Problem solved.

I went on a first date in a bad neighborhood with a guy I’d never met before.

Let me tell you about the time a guy took me to a funeral in Englewood.

Well, that’s the Upworthy version of the headline. I’d been talking with an intriguingly quirky guy on a dating site for a week or so when he mentioned that he really, really wanted to go to this Mandela memorial that Congressman Bobby Rush was hosting at his church in Englewood. I agreed to go with him because

1. he was an interesting guy
2. I liked his politics
3. The service sounded pretty damn cool
4. It was either going to be a great first date or a great story to tell at parties later.

Regarding #4, it turned out to be both. It didn’t work out, but I was glad I took the risk.

I also wrote his name and where I was going on the dry erase board in my kitchen before I left. If my body ever washes up on the beach, at least the cops will have a clue where they should start looking.

I went on a first date with a guy I’d never met and never talked to.

Now, when it comes to online dating, I’m generally not one for extended conversation online before we meet. It’s usually just coffee and I don’t like wasting my best chitchat on email. But you know, a little screening generally happens since I have a strict policy against creeps and weirdos.

But then there was the time that a guy emailed me about a show I’d mentioned in my profile that I wanted to see. “That sounds like fun,” he wrote. “Let’s do it.”

Against my better judgment, I just said “Okay!”

I can’t tell you that it was any kind of gut instinct that led me to throw the rules out the window. The fact was that everything we did on that date happened in public, in crowds, where the risk was incredibly low. So why the hell not?

And we went to the show, and it was nice, and we dated for the better part of the summer.

Online dating isn’t scary. It’s just coffee. It’s either going to be a good date or a good story to tell at a party. Just don’t get stupid about it and you’re fine.

I traveled to Rome by myself.

This was probably the single most empowering thing I’ve ever done. At the time that I did it, back in 2003, I was terrified. It was my first trip abroad, I didn’t speak Italian, and I was completely on my own. I actually had a small panic attack while waiting for my ride to the airport, wondering if I should call the whole thing off.

But once I was there, it was magic. I fell in love with Europe.

I rode the train to Naples, sharing a mostly private car with a middle-aged businessman who never looked up from his newspaper.

I wandered through the ruins of Pompeii without a tour group. I encountered a man who wanted to show me things in the ruins. I hesitated, but I followed him as he pointed to various mosaics and frescos. Then he wanted money.

In hindsight, this was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life. In fact, don’t do this. It worked out in my favor, and it helps prove my point that most people are not out to get you, but the circumstances did violate my “safety in a crowd” rule and could have ended badly.

Walking down a street near Termini Station one day, I passed a small cluster of men and one of them called after me with a half-hearted, “Ciao bella!” That’s the only harassment I’ve experienced while traveling — and calling it harassment is a stretch.

I explored Shanghai alone.

I had food poisoning, which gave me an excuse to opt out of group activities. Feeling better one night, I went for a stroll down Nanjing Road, down to the Bund and the famous Shanghai skyline. I had dinner at a Pizza Hut on the way back.

On another day, I needed to find a UPS so I could ship some things that weren’t going to fit in my suitcase. I asked the front desk staff to write down the address, then hailed a cab and showed the address to the driver, who dropped me off and sped away a split second later. The address had been recently abandoned, and now I was stuck. There weren’t even any pedestrians around. There was a note on the door noting the new address, but cabbies don’t read Pinyin well, and I couldn’t write Chinese. Without that Chinese address, the only thing I could do was get back to the hotel. I flagged down a teenager who kind of spoke a little English and managed to pantomime that I needed him to write down the Chinese address. Then I hailed another cab.

No one in China bothered me, and it honestly never occurred to me that someone might. We moved through Beijing and Shanghai mostly unnoticed except when in Tiananmen Square some Chinese tourists visiting from the countryside wanted to touch our hair. They’d never seen Americans in person before.

The experience reminded me vaguely of Freya Stark’s accounts of sneaking into the interior of the then-unexplored Middle East, modern day Iraq. Everyone thought it unsafe, and yet when she was traveling through she found herself treated relatively well by the locals and even with some bemusement since she was a European woman traveling alone through the goddamn Middle East. I’m no Freya Stark, but I see myself more in her than in the girls who are afraid to wear heels and ponytails.

I drank with firefighters in Barcelona.

There was a bar around the corner from the apartment I was renting, and I liked to go there at night to wind down. Get a glass of wine, sit on one of the comfy sofas, cruise Facebook on the free wi-fi. It completely escaped me that the day was Saturday, the bar started to fill up, and a guy asked if he could take the other end of the sofa. Next thing I knew, he and all of the friends that joined him had sort of adopted me. They were local firefighters, buddies out for a drink on their night off. They found me amusing, speaking in my mostly terrible high school Spanish as best I could, trying to explain the book I was reading. It became a game that they would chatter away in slushy Spanish? Catalan? Then look at me and wait for me to say, “No se comprendo.” Then they would break out into giggles.

One of the firefighters decided he needed to take a selfie with the amusing American tourist. I asked him to send it to me, and the next thing I knew we were Facebook friends.

Actually, we’re still Facebook friends.

Other things I did in Barcelona in which I was not harassed:

• I cheered for Barca in a crowded pub. (They lost.)
• Lived on a street where there was a prostitute on literally every corner.
• Went out for gelato after 11pm.
• Hiked along the top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea while wearing insensible shoes.

I sold my furniture on Craigslist.

“There are four strange men coming over at 9pm on a Tuesday to abscond with my furniture,” I texted a friend. “Sounds legit, right?”

“I know this porno…” he texted back.

This is another one where I probably should have done things differently. I should have asked my neighbor to come hang out with me while these guys were in my apartment. Instead I sent a text to a friend so at least someone knew what was up.

It ended up fine. The five (not four) guys who showed up turned out to be off-duty Chicago cops, and they paid the agreed price in cash.

I moved cross country, twice.

Straight out of college, I moved to Florida. A year later I was back in Illinois, but then I moved out to Colorado, where I stayed for nine years.

I hiked mountain trails.

Granted, I did this selectively. I stuck to well-traveled trails where there was nearly always at least one other hiker within sight. I would sometimes get nervous if I came to a spot where I couldn’t see or hear anyone else, but mostly because I didn’t want to run into any bears or mountain lions.

I drink with the guys at tech conferences.

The thing is, I’m there to network, and that means networking with the guys, and it’s probably mostly guys being that it’s tech. But I’ve never thought of myself as a woman in tech so much as I’m just someone who works in tech. It’s never been a problem for me.

But before anyone thinks I’m being dismissive or implying that it’s not my problem, yes, the lack of women in tech is a thing. So is harassment of women at tech conferences, apparently, since tech is mostly a dude culture. I’m fully on board with the conversation around women in tech and tech women at conferences in particular, because that shit should never happen.

My gut tells me that creepy dudes getting handsy or a little too close at the networking event at the hotel bar is more of an exception than a rule, which means the odds are in my favor and the level of risk is acceptable.

I rented apartments on Airbnb.

I’ve done this twice — in Barcelona and Los Angeles. It worked out beautifully both times and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Especially in L.A., because that was a guest house in the Hollywood Hills with a killer view and hummingbirds that zipped around the deck every morning.

I let a guy from Couchsurfing stay with me during the DNC in Denver.

Once upon a time, I dabbled in Couchsurfing. It was a rather uneventful experiment since I didn’t live close enough to anything to be of much interest to anyone visiting Denver.

But then there was the Democratic National Convention, and the closest hotel rooms were probably in Wyoming. And suddenly there was interest in my couch.

I agreed to host an artist from Ohio (or was it Indiana?) who was selling Obama memorabilia out of his car outside of the arena.

Nothing happened. He worked all day, then came back to my place and crashed and that was it.

I am a single woman living in a big city.

That’s the gist of everything here. I’m wearing heels on a first date to meet a perfect stranger, and I’ll walk home in the dark afterward. I’ll have a drink with some firefighters in a bar in Barcelona. I’ll hop in a cab in Shanghai. I’ll go for a run after sunset. I have to be independent. I have to figure out how to do everything on my own, and I have to be okay with that. If I wasn’t, then I’d never get to do anything, never get to see the world, never have any fun at all.

The world is not out to get me. The world has its issues and a lot of work to do, but I’m not going to waste time waiting for everything to get sorted out. It’s a calculated risk, and I’ll mitigate wherever possible, but I’ve got things to do.