Honestly, y'all, I can't understand why everyone makes so much of the fact that she didn't take teh bus driver up on his offer (which, if I recall correctly, was not for a ride--he was 100 yards from his house. There was no ride to be offered. If my memory serves, what he offered was help, his warm house, and a chance to use the phone).
From the day we are born, women have it drilled into us never to get into cars with people we don't know, right? I mean, what's the rule for rape/abduction/carjacking scenarios? Anyone?
The number one rule is DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH HIM. If you get in the car with him, you're dead.
I'm not exaggerating, or being a jackass. This is what they teach you.
And here we all are criticizing Maura for not accepting a ride from a stranger. Yet in how many other scenarios do we criticize women for doing exactly what Maura DIDN'T do? The only reason we know this man turned out to be harmless is a little thing called "hindsight." Here was some guy in the mountains saying "Come to my house and get warm, use the phone while we wait for the towtruck." My reaction, as a woman, is thank you but are you NUTS? She had no way of knowing. She had to make a judgment call--and it's quite likely her judgment was a little rattled, given events of the last few moments, to say nothing of whatever had happened in the last few days to make her so upset on Thursday, so introspective over the weekend, upset about her dad's car, taking off from school on Sunday, heading to the mountains near dark on a Monday, etc. She guessed, based on everything she'd been taught from the moment she was born. Would you like to take a ride from a stranger, a man, which would put you potentially alone with him in a place where you may not have access to help? Without all the other info we have now about her disappearance, just basing it on those parameters, NO THANK YOU I WILL STAY WITH MY CAR AND FAKE IT. Period.
Regarding the possible scenario of her being five miles down the road and later accepting a ride from someone else entirely, that
does make a certain amount of sense, despite all I just said. She says to Atwood no thanks, I don't need help, I got this. She goes four or five miles down the road. It's dark. It's cold. The road is crappy. Her nose is running, she can't see, if she's been drinking the alcohol may be wearing off, worse yet she may have to pee like a racehorse, she still hasn't gotten somewhere with cell reception or a bathroom or anyplace like whatever it is she's looking for, and she's freezing her *advertiser censored* off. She's not wearing good shoes, so her feet are probably soaking wet and freezing. Somebody stops and rolls down their window and offers a ride.
This is a completely different decision than the one she made 45 minutes ago in the relative warmth and safety of her car. And she may well be thinking by this point, "This is stupid. I should have just gone with that guy when he offered back there."
It could happen.
I have no idea whether or not it did, but to those people who are saying she wouldn't accept a ride later if she didn't accept one from Atwood--go out and stand in a snowbank for a half-hour and then rethink that answer.
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