You do.
That provocation may be accidental on your part.
In the scenario you listed, it might have been the fire, a log may have snapped in the fire and the bear may have a history being shot at or hunted, the man may have been sitting but he may also have been loud and aggressive. The man may have been harassing that bear earlier.
You DO have to conduct yourself intelligently around bears. They're bears.
In my experience, human men have a problem with this. And you can't argue with this because you can't have it both ways. You men can't on the one hand argue how men are natural risk takers over women yet refuse to acknowledge that many a time, those "risks" are foolishness personified just to show out and lead to harm of yourselves or others because it's unnecessary drama.
Every time I've been around a bear in company with men where the man/men in question don't know how to conduct themselves (or refuse to) the man/men are HRLL BENT on acting a fool the first chance they get.
Whether that's throwing pine cones at a bear cub in front of its mother, trying to "count coup" by smacking a juvenile bear's muzzle for no damn reason, acting aggressively toward it when there's no need, following it, rattling its cage at the zoo, screaming at it for no reason, disturbing them in preserves, flash photography, taunting it, heckling it, teasing it.....I could go on. And for what? Why?
No opportunity to act a fool is spared. Ever.
I don't think bears like men much because that abuse becomes generational trauma. Bears seem so much more tolerant and curious around women. If you live out in one's territory and it takes up with you, they kinda show out a lot. They seem to want to be seen and they're goobers (talking black bears specifically).
I always just thought it was just me and the Grandmas. But I keep seeing vid after vid of women who live rurally with black bears that have taken up with them and come around. The women treat them like little boys before being sent off to school and being indoctrinated into man code; back when they basked in their mothers attention and were playful, gregarious, rambunctious, joyful, and goobers of adorably awkward silliness.
To a one, they all love and adore "their" bears.
You have to appreciate the irony there and recognize the profoundness in that.
A bear's gentle nature mimics the inherent nature of men and make better 'men' than many men do, who have given up that inherent nature to mold themselves to a ridiculous social scipt.
Maybe there's something in that, that makes women choose the bear too. Because we lose our sons to these social scripts for men. You get them for 5 or 6 years before you start to lose them.
Maybe women tend to adore bears the way we do because they remind us of little boys before society's gender tropes have gotten its pernicious hooks into them and started to ruin them; cleave half their souls away and stealing them from us.
***
I've noticed this same sort of preference for women over men with deer, horses, foxes, and coyotes too.
Jupe and I run across the occasional coyote on our morning walks. It's not that big a deal. They seem curious but tolerant as long as we stay quiet and non aggressive. Keep a respectful distance, politely wish them a good morning. All the things. Joopey seems to really like them, which is odd because she doesn't generally like for other dogs to get too close. But then, they run up on her all obnoxious like. Coyotes don't front like that.
But they'll flee if a man comes around. And men will warn me about them if they see them while we're leaving the apartment grounds. But it's not the big deal they always make it out to be. Sorry, it's just not.
