Remember this: You are not going to read this in Field & Stream.
I went to the doctor's office for an ear infection. When I walked in there was this man I knew that I really don't care for. Like some relationships the wife got in an accident, got a pay out and divorced him. Undoubtedly there is some unresolved issues there. I was sitting in an exam room minding my own business when I hear the loud public conversation between the nurse and this man about deer hunting. In brief this was what it was about:
Man X states to the nurse he has been hunting. He brags he has been shooting anything that moves with a hit number of four. The nurse tells him just make sure it has horns. He tells her that every time he shoots a deer he imagines he is shooting and killing a woman.
With this being said, this could have been a woman. Fair is fair. It just happened to be a man on this day. Why I am the one that hears this is beyond me? I was reading a book where the tendency to have homicidal fantasies was pretty close on female and male parts.
I sat in the exam room disturbed. I have been in the same area hunting with this man. What if he decided to cap me and call it an accident because I am of no importance? I told my dad and I don't think he believed me, but my dad is always taking other peoples' sides. This goes to show you, when you are standing beside a stranger, you have no idea what kind of person they are, what their thoughts are, and if they are a good enough pretender, can try to pull the wool over your eyes if opportunity presents itself.
I assumed this whole attitude was from a life crisis that wasn't dealt with appropriately. I wondered about the attitude of people to put a gender into a box and judge everyone accordingly, just because they have a vagina. Here this man's wife had harmed him in his mind, he didn't deal with it in a healthy way, if he dealt with it at all, and now he was punishing everything female, human and animal. Of course when you have couples issues, each individual is only dwelling on the 'me' of the situation. That is probably how they got there in the first place; lack of consideration for the other and no compromise. (I exclude people that are truly evil and torment their spouse because that is a whole separate beast.)
My reasoning behind this is how hunting can become a violent outlet for germinating psychological problems and how the hunter can cross that blurred line of right and wrong to become something much darker. Also the blanketing of a group through a form of internal resentment without justification to the punishment that is doled out to innocent victims. The person hurts so they hurt others. This doesn't seem to make sense as it causes more suffering to a greater variety of people and things. You could consider this the bubonic plague of pain because it spread all over the Europe of our life, killing everything in its path until you find a cure. The cure is coming to terms with yourself for your failings, vulnerabilities, and schemes you've concocted to foil other people through manipulation and lies.
People in bad relationships do not seek the help they need to overcome issues. Most people are afraid to go to a therapist because someone might call them crazy. Trust me when I say if you kill someone they are going to call you crazy anyway. You whole memory on Earth will be tarnished. Is that a way for people to exit the world? In the negative? They would rather tell a friend or minister that is not bound by law to spread their drama. Yet the whole community finds out and each party, depending on who is in the right or wrong, loves to get the sympathy for the tragedy while the other is the villain. Once your break-up is old news, no one cares anymore and they move on. The problem is in your mind, you don't. You stay in this horrible festering place of darkness that bleeds out into everything thing around you from your perspective.
In consideration of the man's behavior, I wondered how it could be contrasted with another sort of situation. I then thought that this could be applied to the behavior of people who hunt on social media. In this excerpt you have an imaginary social situation:
"we asked subjects to imagine the same scenario: that they were at a party and that a classmate they knew spilled a drink on them and failed to apologize. Their choices were to (1) hit the person (2) insult the person to his or her face (3) push the person or (4) get in person's face (all forms of direct aggression); or to (5) talk behind the person's back, (7) try to exclude the person from a social group, or (8) make up a lie about the person (all four being forms of indirect aggression)." (Kenrick 33)
Sounds vaguely familiar. In this day and age you would think people would have learned by now that violence doesn't solve all problems. It just causes more.
I would say to the hunter or huntress sitting in the stand with a gun pointing towards a target: If you are holding a gun and seeing a person that you think you hate, put it down and find some help. There are therapists available or counselors to help you work through your problem. Don't trust anyone else to keep your secrets because the first time you piss them off they are going to tattle it all in good time. This will only make you feel more betrayed. Betrayal drives a lot of murders along with obsessive thoughts of ownership or possessions.
Here is a personal story as to the nature of potential toxic relationships.
I went on a horseback riding trip with a older man I thought was a friend. His designs weren't that way. I blamed it on the moon. He was very possessive and like to crowd you. One day when we were riding in the moonlight he told me how he tried to load a young horse into a trailer. The horse wouldn't buge. Horses tend to be claustrophobic and depending on the color of the trailer interior or if there is a panel will not load without the smarts of the loader. Some horses will even scramble at full speed in a horse trailer. You don't want to traumatize the animal or cause it to harm itself because I have seem horses flip over in a paneled two horse trailer to land on its back upside down. Very dangerous stuff. This man told me he got a whip and beat the horse until it couldn't stand and was tied to the trailer. I was just quiet. I knew right then being a friend with him just wouldn't work because he would probably get mad one day and do the same to me. Sure enough when I tried to separate myself from him he started showing up to my job. One of the older ladies that worked with me told me to stay away from him because I didn't need someone violent or unstable that couldn't be counted on. Who wants to have to wake up every morning, wet their finger and see which way the wind is blowing?
This is an example of a calling card of a potential toxic or bad relationship. Heed it. I can imagine when the obsessive person doesn't get their way and wants the animal to mind they are capable of anything. I am glad I escaped with no more than the stank eye. That is the worrisome thing. You have someone sitting in their house visualizing heinous things in their head that are accumulation of memories where these images re-enforce anger that turns into pure out murderous hate. The other person that these emotions are directed at never see it coming or know it but don't want to believe their life is in peril.
Don't get me wrong, there are people that wave the old red flag in peoples' face causing their own demise. This kind of person is living in Delusional City. They have no concept their lives are in danger, the things they do can cause other people to get killed, and think they know the other person so well that it can't possibly happen. These types of people go right back for more punishment. I call them Dumb As A Rock. The person thus shows up somewhere packing a murderous fury that ends in a string of connected lives being destroyed and all for naught. The man above did come to my work out the blue angry and I wasn't even in a relationship with him. I had only been on less than three outings and I am sure I couldn't make that big of an impression on him. He could have been thinking of doing me harm and I wouldn't have even known it. We are not gifted with telekinesis or Sookie Stackhouse-like powers.
Given the situation above, anything can happen. When it comes to hunting and having a weapon, once again, if you visualize killing someone that you are temporarily mad at, stop, put the gun down, and go find help. I say this because, when you start developing distorted rationale your life becomes hindered for the negative in all kinds of ways. These feelings are temporary if you decide not to hold onto them. Most people can't let go of the past. Not that you should forget a wrong done you but don't let someone repeat it again. Shame on you the second time. You don't have to be violent or punish the next person for someone else's crimes against your heart.
Remember not to pick the same person over and over. The habit is to pick a person that is familiar but not exactly the same. You're only getting the person from your past relationship and you will try to do the same things thereby committing the same errors. Its human habit. Be still inside yourself and learn from your mistakes. If you have to make more mistakes make sure the whole situation and person is different. Get out the relationship rut. Learn to communicate and stop being a selfish "I am right all the time" douche. You are in control of your mind, actions and thought. Blaming someone else continuously doesn't get you off the hook. Above all else, move on. Become the nomad of love for love's sake until you find that fruitful valley to settle down. Don't settle; you'll only become angry, cheated, and miserly.
Rethink your thought process and question what is passing through your mind. Test, challenge the thoughts to see if there is proof. If not, think something positive to counter the bad thought. You have the power in you to do that. The bad thought doesn't control you. You really do have a choice.
The other mindsets to counter this killing image is: you will lose your life or the freedom to live your life. People that kill others tend to kill themselves, once they realize acting on this behavior has caused their life to be ruined with jail, guilt, and public condemnation to name a few. If you kill someone and hide the body, you'll always be looking over your shoulder.
If you go to jail, all you will see is other people that could kill you and have to think about the freedom and life you lost. If you kill someone, you can't reanimate them to right a wrong. Dead is dead. If you believe in religion, you will be damned to infernal Hells, pits of fire, and eternal torture. How is that for scary?
Say it once more with feeling....Hell fire.
On the other hand, you can forgive yourself, forget the other person, move on and find nirvana in life.
You can hunt because you're not in jail. You can eat deer meat because you didn't commit suicide in lieu of murder. You get to drink coffee on some mountainside while glassing for mountain goats. Why ruin your life? The person is not worth a wasted life. There is a more worthy person that will love and tolerate you. If you throw down bad relationship habits and get brave to learn from other people, a licensed therapist or God forbide you pick up a book and read it; life will change. You are not the only person in the world to ever have their heart broken. Nor are you the only one that could ever think about doing someone in. It's the execution of that desire that will ruin you. Don't do it. Hunt another day when your mind is right.
With that being said, it is my hope that hunters and huntresses leave the relationship problems in the therapist office where they belong, and not in the deer stand.
Otherwise, the other option is be happy with yourself. You are whole, in control, and don't have to sully your good life because of a bad person. They can buy a one way ticket to Forget You.
Don't ruin your life because of a couple of bad apples. The worms and ground get them in the end.
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
Copyright © 2026 All Rights Reserved.
Literature Cited:
Kenrick, Douglas. T. Sex Murder and the Meaning of Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. (2011). pp. 33
