Quote Originally Posted by KnightErrant View Post
I agree with this post, and I definitely think it's useful in every kind of interaction in life, whether with strangers or spouses, to always assume if there are two ways to construe something, the person meant it in the nicer way. Most humans don't deliberately make each other feel bad. Granted, just because I didn't mean for something to be offensive doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with it-- we should always be willing to listen to other perspectives we hadn't initially considered-- but I'm much happier going through life assuming people generally mean well.

That said, regarding the point in Uncle Joe's post that I bolded, it's important to understand that this "not knowing" goes both ways. A man can't know if a woman will bite his head off for holding the door for her, but it's not his responsibility to preserve her feelings. And, a woman can't know that the man at the campsite won't hurt her. And it's not her responsibility to preserve his feelings. If a woman seems standoffish at first, you could construe that in two ways. One is that's she's an oversensitive man-hater. The other is that she has learned from firsthand experience to be wary around strange men until she's gotten a read of the situation and her gut tells her it's safe. I promise that 99.9% of the time, it's the second one. Like Kestrel said, better to be perceived as a bitch than an easy target. While I have thankfully never been the victim of a violent crime, I've certainly learned that my Southern friendliness and accommodating nature can easily be misconstrued as receptiveness to men's advances. That's gotten me into some uncomfortable and dangerous situations, so I have trained myself not to smile so much right at first. While out hiking, my wariness usually fades the moment a stranger greets me in a normal way, and then we can enjoy each other's company because 99.9% of male hikers have good intentions, too.

Tl;dr I think we should all be as generous as possible in our assumptions about other people's intentions, but please don't judge a woman too harshly if she is unnecessarily guarded around you. While I imagine men and women are equally likely to annoy each other, we simply don't pose an equal physical threat to one another.
I think most men understand that single women on the trail are likely to wary and on guard and understand that behavior for what it is without taking offense or thinking badly of the woman.