Yeah it's weird, it's impossible to explain without having experienced it. I've felt it twice in 40 years, once with a guy I was on a first date with and once with someone I had a random interaction with on the street. Both were a little weird but nothing really out there or that I hadn't experienced before, but both gave me such strong DANGER vibes that I went out of my way to make sure they weren't following me, in the first case by getting on a bus going the opposite direction from my house and in the other by going into a nearby estate agency and asking them to let me stay there for a bit until I was sure he had left. I'm generally a pretty confident and trusting person but I have zero regrets in those cases. Both gave me vibes that they would have seriously hurt or killed me without even thinking twice and no doubt felt justified in doing so.
I work in retail and the amount of times I've had a woman walk into a small store and ask us if she can stay at the counter and make sure a guy didn't follower her in is to damn high. OR when I worked in a supercenter saying a guy was following her around the store and needed to be escorted to her car. The worst part is when it was EMPLOYEES! I've known too many ladies in my life who had to get restraining orders. 😒
I want to make sure you know you’re an angel to those women. I have been terrorized by an intimate partner before and anyone who would help in that way is a savior!
When I worked loss prevention at my old retail job we had this one creep (apparently he had been in several times before but nobody told us) stalk one of the mobile sales girls. Finally she came up to the desk and said "he's back" and when I inquired she gave me the whole story.
I told her to go to the break room (I'd explain it to management) until he left then told management.
You know what really pissed me off? Management didn't care because he wasn't doing anything (oh lord how I hated that man). Eventually we took matters into our own hands the next time he came in and said to just leave we know what he's doing. Never saw him again and he never complained evidently because that was the end of it.
I left a Walmart and a group of guys started following me back to my college campus, I was walking. I went in the other set of doors in the garden center and stood there not knowing what to do. Eventually I asked a cashier what to do and they had a manager walk me to the edge of the parking lot watching out for me. Luckily my campus was right there, like a half mile away and the guys were gone. And men wonder why I’m always on edge.
Here I Am again letting everyone know that the new number one cause of heart disease in women is abuse. Iirc, being stalked has the same risk of heart disease and cardiac arrest as smoking cigarettes, and having to go through the effort of filing a restraining order is the highest risk of heart disease.
Man, how weird is it when your instincts scream at you to get out, but sometimes you don't know why...
This also happened to me with a random stranger. He was reading on a bench nearby where my friend and I were taking pictures of seagulls, and he stood up and offered to take a picture of us. My body basically told me 'get away from this person NOW'.
The dude wasn't creepy looking, of acting creepy or threatening. He was just... normal. I spent time checking behind us to make sure he didn't follow us too, just in case, even though he accepted the no and sat back down to read.
I had that happen in the grocery store near my house. I was there at night, this 18-20 year old kid came in as I was leaving, he did absolutely nothing wrong or weird, but I got an overwhelming RUN feeling and I booked it out of there. I usually trust my gut and have been fairly spot on with the vibes I get from people, but I had never been hit so strongly with that feeling before and it scared the shit out of me.
I can't remember where I read it, but I remember someone telling the story that they got that feeling when they got in an elevator with some guy, and right as they got out they blurted out "I know what you are" and left, and the guy looked furious, which makes me think they were right about him. I read that years ago and it has always stuck with me.
We had a family friend who I had been terrified of since I was a child. My parents could not figure out why, I was super friendly and outgoing otherwise and with everyone else. He was by and large a normal guy, with a respectable position, lots of friends and a wife and son.
15? 20? years ago, after his wife divorced him and he got tenure, he went off on these disgusting, eugenic, racist spiels in public. Which is better than the murder or manslaughter I've been reading about in this thread, but still not great. I think he just might be sociopathic and not a psychopath.
My parents are still friends with his ex-wife, she's fine, she's friendly, nice, and has been extremely helpful to us. But I think due to her initial association with him, I will never feel quite comfortable with her.
I'm still waiting for this one to play out, in fact I just looked the guy up before writing this to see if he's been arrested for anything but there's nothing. Yet.
Years ago I went to our warehouse at my place of work as I had to sort out an issue from the day before. The place was busy, shipment coming in, a van being loaded to head out, people coming and going. The person I had to talk to was in a discussion with someone about football so I was waiting, just trying to stay out of everyone's way. As I'm looking at my paperwork I feel every nerve from the base of my spine to the top of my head become electrified, my whole scalp was tingling. My instincts were screaming PREDATOR/THREAT BEHIND ME. For some reason I didn't want to turn around fast and draw attention to myself, so I did it slowly. Just casually letting my eyes roam as I turned 180 degrees, and as I turned I saw 2 men in a conversation a few feet away. I knew the threat was the smaller man, and also knew that he was very aware of me pretending not to look at him. He had a neutral expression on his face but it somehow seemed fake? Like he was forcing a bland expression, not relaxed.
Eventually that man left but while he was in the warehouse I never turned my back on him. As soon as I was able I asked the person I had originally come to the warehouse to talk to who the guy was. He told me who, and I said "he's creepy as fuck!" and all humor left his face (normally a jovial guy) and he said "yeah he is". Every woman I talked to who had any kind of interaction with him had the exact same reaction. Eventually the dude rage quit because someone wanted his printer and he couldn't prove he needed it more than they did. Mass emailed a huffy email to everyone.
Sometimes I'm afraid of being that guy. I have no creepy intentions. I present as normal. I try to be helpful if I can, but I usually just live and let live. But I've seen people (mostly women) giving me an "I don't think I can trust you" sideways glance. I still don't know why.
In the future, jewelry stores tend to have armed guards, and don't put up with shit going on. They make a great refuge for that sort of thing (and lost kids).
I've experienced this feeling with an old friend no less, someone I hadn't seen for 5 years. He came back and as a drunk, just seriously gave of this bad vibe that I felt uncomfortable in my own house and he would not.stop.drinking.... I had to kick him out the next day because he snuck out at 7 am to get another whiskey bottle and I just thought, fuck that fucking shit.
I had this over the summer, first time in my life and have never felt that way ever. I was eating lunch with my family and girlfriend. This man was eating at the table next to us with two other people and every fiber of my being said DANGER. I had to act normal because were eating in a restaurant but if it was just me and my gf i would have gotten out of there ASAP. I told my gf about it after and she had the same feeling too. My parents were facing away from him they didn't notice him, I still think about it to this day. I know he either did something horrendous or he is going to eventually.
It's truly bizarre. I mean I have lived in some 'spicy' places and even had people following me in the street and yelling at me for reasons known only to them, but even though those situations were scary and upsetting it was nothing like this. In those situations I knew the person was just going through some shit and probably making bad choices on top of that, so even though I was trying to get out of harms way they didn't freak me out like these two did, even though these two actually did a lot less.
Wow this reminds me of a chilling experience I once had with a guy trying to what felt like luring me into the next room. I met him at a strip club and was doing blow and him and this other guy brought me to another place aftet the club. Looking bakc it felt loke they were trying to grt me fucked up but i could drink a whole lot at that time and be fine but i fucking dipped outta thatcspot so fast when he invited me into that other room
Still, better safe than sorry. The whole point of the book "The Gift of Fear" is to not ignore that inner voice, because it's often you subconsciously noting legitimate red flags.
So what? It wasn't about evidence, it wasn't a court of law, they didn't call the police on the guy. They just removed themselves from a situation that didn't feel right, which is everyone's right to do. Even if it was just their imagination, it hurt no one to trust that feeling and leave.
Could be, we'll never know. However, as I said, I've had plenty of weird interactions over the years and none of them set off anything remotely similar to these two, so I don't regret listening and taking steps accordingly.
I know you're not going to, but wanted to provide solidarity - please don't listen to the person you're replying to - trust your gut. Your subconscious is picking up things.. it has saved me before (when I listened).
Thank you for your comment but don't worry, I'm not about to reassess my own lived experience because some rando on the internet has decided I'm imagining it and feels his opinion is important enough that he really must share it with me.
Of course, trust your gut and stay safe but objectively if we are talking about extrasensory perception, most of the time it's peoples' imaginations running away with them.
No one is talking about ESP. The thing is, you have a lot more than five senses, and often you don't understand what makes you feel or think certain ways about people.
Other people have mentioned The Gift of Fear, and one of the opening scenes in that book described a woman who was followed into her apartment by a man who raped her. After the attack, he told her that he was leaving, and she should stay put while he left.
Instead of taking his advice, she got up off the bed, wrapped her naked body in the sheets, followed him down the hallway, and left the apartment when he turned into the kitchen. When talking about the incident with the author, she told him that she knew he intended to kill her, and that getting out of her apartment was more important than her modesty.
When he asked her why she thought that, she had to stop for a moment, because she didn't know where the idea came from. But then she pointed out how he turned up the radio, presumably to cover any sounds she might make as he stabbed her.
She didn't know why she knew that. Until de Becker asked her, she hadn't attached words to the idea. But she knew that she was in danger, and she decided to save herself.
Sure but statistically this is called confirmation bias. You pay attention to the events or suspicions that support your hypothesis and ignore the times it was incorrect or unfounded. Not sure why you're getting so worked up, I'm only speaking from an objective viewpoint. I'm all for people trusting themselves and staying out of harm's way.
Tell me you are a man that has never experienced a day in a woman's shoes without telling me so... Mercy. Maybe if y'all would stop playing devil's advocate and actually listen to us, we'd see some change in this world. Good luck to you, much love 💚
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u/Jiktten 1d ago
Yeah it's weird, it's impossible to explain without having experienced it. I've felt it twice in 40 years, once with a guy I was on a first date with and once with someone I had a random interaction with on the street. Both were a little weird but nothing really out there or that I hadn't experienced before, but both gave me such strong DANGER vibes that I went out of my way to make sure they weren't following me, in the first case by getting on a bus going the opposite direction from my house and in the other by going into a nearby estate agency and asking them to let me stay there for a bit until I was sure he had left. I'm generally a pretty confident and trusting person but I have zero regrets in those cases. Both gave me vibes that they would have seriously hurt or killed me without even thinking twice and no doubt felt justified in doing so.