rabthecairnterrier wrote:Sgurr wrote:Greigmartinwalk, don't be put off looking for someone to share your walks by the above. I LIKED walking in a group. All old college friends of husband, my only worry was one day they would notice I wasn't a bloke and would boot me out. Admittedly I DID notice that the most experienced was the least keen to proffer advice (a subconscious feeling he was low in the pecking order due to earning less?) but the others all had a fair amount of sense...though since he has gone to Oz, I don't miss one particular companion's tendency to teeter at the top of steep slopes and then belt off down them, assuming we all would follow, which we did. Life has inevitably become more sedate as we age.
Any walking group where there is a "pecking order" based on how much - or how little - people earn sounds like a group well worth avoiding. Sensible folk head for the hills to get away from such pettiness (amongst other things).
I think it was totally sub-conscious. If you have 4 blokes, all of whom are roughly on a par in hill walking terms, when they start debating what to do, the one with most confidence seemed to take over, and he was the one who happened to be in charge of most people at work, and earned most. But it didn't always happen that way, as he was persuadable. The one with the most experience had had periods of unemployment when he headed for the hills, but very tentative in putting his views forward. I can only remember " taking over" on one occasion when I refused to continue in what seemed dangerous conditions, and they all agreed, but I had far less experience than any of them, when we were walking together.