Familiarity is Key

I just finished a discussion with my friend about how safe/unsafe she would feel if dropped in an unfamiliar neighborhood. It was based off of something that happened way back at New Years. It's about one's familiarity with a particular neighborhood and how safe they feel in said neighborhood:

On New Years, my friends, Mike and Stevie, and I were going to go our another friend's, Stephanie's, house. I was at Stevie's house picking him up when I got a call from Mike telling me that he wasn't going to go. When I asked him why, he said that somebody told him that Stephanie didn't live in the best neighborhood, so he thought it better to just not go. This made me mad, because I knew he was just being a lame. She lives near Central/Fullerton; Mike lives near Lombard/Pershing. I've been to both houses numerous times and would definitely say that I feel safer near her house than I would his house. I had a little argument with him telling him that things would be fine at her house, that'd we'd be inside anyway, so what does it even matter. But he's one for taking the safe way rather than doing anything that might be a little risky (aka: BORING). Anyway, I dismissed it and told him I'd call him at midnight--and let him know that I was fine.

So this discussion I just had with my friend, we were talking about if it's the neighborhood's reputation that makes it feel safe or the familiarity. Basically, we concluded that the familiarity reigns over all. We decided that we would feel threatened basically anywhere we go, even it was a super rich, super low crime rate neighborhood; we're still going to be scared that somebody might snatch us into the bushes or something. But if we're at least in a neighborhood that we know, especially one that we know very well, we feel somewhat better. Why? Because we know the streets, we know how to get around, and we know where to go when we feel threatened.

So I guess it's as simple as those three words: Familiarty is key.