I had my first male teacher in seventh grade. While he turned out to be a great teacher and a nice guy, my mom was very apprehensive about it. A week or so into the year, she sat me down at home and told me to make sure I was never alone with him. She said if he asked to see me after class, make sure we were in plain sight with the door open. If he asked me to help him with something, and it was just going to be me, find a way out of it. She said to avoid going into his office if at all possible.

This is hardly out of the ordinary. While it may seem like exceptional distrust of men, many girls are taught this way, and it’s a necessary evil in a society where the only way to prevent girls from being taken advantage of is to teach them to avoid situations in which that might be possible. While there are many decent and trustworthy men out there, we have to keep alert and ready to either defend ourselves or run in the event that we encounter a man with ill intentions.

This began very early as it does for many girls. When I was very young, I didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to go to friends’ houses if a female parent wasn’t present. Now that I do, I would certainly enforce the same rules if I had a daughter. Until high school, I treated boys like they had the plague because I was genuinely afraid of them. I cringed any time a guy said hello or gave me a hug. I never initiated any contact and rarely started a conversation with a boy because I didn’t want them to approach me. I didn’t have a single guy friend until high school.

Even when I started developing friendships with guys, there was always a sense of distrust. I always had an escape plan in mind. When I talked to a guy, I would try to appear intimidating and even unapproachable, as I had earlier, to give the impression that I wasn’t someone to mess with or even look at the wrong way. I doubt that was very successful given my appearance, but it made me feel calmer and safer. It was in high school that I realized as a whole, it’s easier for me to befriend guys than girls in spite of my discomfort. There’s a competitive edge in many girls’ friendships (not all) that simply isn’t there with guys.

Still, I never felt comfortable spending time with groups in which the majority of people were guys until recently because now more than ever, I have to stay alert and stay guarded around guys. The statistics are staggering: one in five women will be sexually assaulted in college. Looking around this coffee shop, there are easily two dozen other girls here, and to think that five of us will be sexually assaulted (whether that’s being raped or forced into something else against our will) is terrifying and frankly makes me want to curl up in my bed with the door to my room locked and never leave again. With statistics that high, there is no way even the smartest and safest women can avoid assault. Not even avoiding men as much as possible can entirely prevent that.

I’m thankful that I learned to be wary as I did. I’m thankful that I learned to see red flags and that I feel appropriately uncomfortable around guys who speak or behave in a lewd manner. However, all the precautions in the world will not eradicate assault from our culture or even from college campuses. I am lucky to have befriended a few guys who I feel I can trust and who I know would not allow anything to happen to me, but not all girls are so fortunate, and not all guys are so kind. Lessons in avoiding situations that may lead to assault are valuable and unfortunately necessary, but no real change will come until preventing assault is as instilled in guys’ minds as much as it is in ours.