*nods* Yup. Exactly. I don't think she even got asked, directly, to participate. Maybe everyone there was sensitive enough to pick up on 'go away' vibes. Or maybe it was just luck. But it put her on nervous alert, and took the shine off part of her stay there.

Please to be noting the lack of gender or situational identifiers there. One of the things I had to give up first when I started 'sniffing around' feminism on the internet was that only certain things can be intimidating.

Whew. Yes. Thank you. I get that guys often don't *mean* to intimidate. I will even accept that they are sometimes shocked when they do. But I am most often relieved and no longer intimidated when they just accept that people react like that, regardless of how much sense it does/doesn't make.