One Autumn evening a year (maybe two?) Before I met my wife, my roommates, and a group of guys they hung out with from another apartment organized an impromptu trip up to Logan canyon with a couple of apartments of girls. they had recently met. I was one off the roommates with a car, so I was enlisted as a participate in the adventure.
We drove to a campground and built a fire in the fire pit. There may have been S'mores involved, though I can't recall for certain. There was lots of get -to-know-you chatter, and occasional joke or funny comment, and some just plain random chatter. The girls did most of the talking. They remained sort of clustered together, while the guys were sort of randomly scattered in ones and twos around the fire.
Time passed, the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the shadows darkened as night fell. Soon, the campfire was the only source of light. The conversation shifted to this. The girls began huddling closer together as they discussed the darkness, and that they couldn't see anything. One of them noted that we are in what was essentially wilderness area, and that there were probably wild animals out there. The space between the girls grew smaller, and the voices became quieter, more nervous sounding.
There was a noise out in the darkness. Then began the "what was that?" dialogue as they tried to imagine the possibilities, commented on the nature and quality of the sound, tried to pinpoint the location. Someone thought they saw glowing eyes. The huddle tightened even more. A couple of the boys went to investigate. As they came back, the conversation again turned to the possibilities of what might be lurking in the darkness. One of the guys mentioned he recalled seeing a newspaper article about someone seeing a cougar near here.
The word 'cougar' had just left his lips when the not tightly packed flock of girls emitted a loud, collective, moaning squeal of fear. They were practically in each other's laps at this point. And the terror emitting from them was palpable. They needed to go home.
But now they realized they had no flashlights and couldn't see where the vehicles were. And when I said we needed to dowse the fire first, another freak-out ensued. We would be trapped in utter darkness an unfathomable distance form civilization (something like five miles from the city).
One of the guys had a large spotlight on his pick-up, so I sent him to fire it up. Then the rest of the group could use that to find their way to the vehicles. I would stay behind to extinguish the fire and then join them. A few of the girls refused to leave me. "They concluded that my decisive plan of action" indicated that I was likely the one most capable of protecting them should something leap from the shadows, so they wanted to stay close to me.
Ultimately we all returned safely to our various apartments, at which point I got berated by the other guys. The two who had gone to investigate the noise had discovered a couple of raccoons. And they were rather put out that I brought an abrupt end to the incident.
Now, I don't know if they were simply enjoying watching the girls lose their minds in panic, or if any of them had recently been in the human sexuality course, which included a section of arousal, and cited studies that fear causing situations often heightened arousal. (A specific study was cited where a pretty young female would stop young men to take a survey, and would give them a phone number so they could call if they wanted to know the results. The survey was taken in a couple of places; a parking lot of a college campus, and right after a small, rickety bridge spanning a gorge. Men from the bridge survey were more than twice as likely to call and try to get a date). Whatever their motive, I spoiled the fun.
I was recently thinking about that event. And it struck me how prone we are to that kind of Herd Mentality. We talk a bout possible outcomes, usually fearfully, and before long we are imagining the worst, then convinced that the worst outcome is not only likely to happen, but is in fact already in motion. We are certain that sound in the dark is a cougar or a bear, with above average intelligence and a very specific taste for human flesh. Probably know our name and home address too.
It never crosses our mind it might just be a hungry raccoon looking for a few scraps. Even though that is the more likely scenario.
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