“He makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up” - warning signs you have observed

Thanks to whoever posted the link to the Gift of Fear. Really interesting

There is nothing negative about learning to trust your instincts.

Yep - and it does have to be learned.

Mine are shit because I've always been taught that I'm in the wrong, and this extends in every direction. Spent a long time assuming that I was bad at reading people and compensated for this by being far too trusting. Then spent a long time assuming that my instincts were too crappy to keep me safe, and compensated for this by withdrawing from everybody.

It's actually quite useful to hear someone say that one can learn to be more receptive to one's instincts.

Had a very strange few days a few weeks ago, during which something clicked in my brain and I was suddenly able to consciously read people - body language, micro-expressions, etc - and draw accurate inferences about what was going on inside their heads. It was bizarre, especially when walking outside.

The only random stranger I remember from that time, even from a distance something felt off. Much as Barracker described way upthread. Didn't dare meet the bloke's eyes, and as I passed him I could physically feel malevolence radiating off him. No idea what I'd picked up on, but I was on high alert, pulse racing, guts clenching, prepared to run.

Made me realise though - I do have instincts. Always did. Just learned to squash them without even realising it.

Trusting your instincts doesn’t come into play on every meeting.

Just sometimes you get an overwhelming urge to run

And one of the things I’ve learned to look for through bad experience is the person who is incredibly popular, to the point where everyone dances round them. Something else to factor in
Yes yes oh yes.

from me too, Tyro. I wish MN had a hug emoji too.

Tyro

The question is whether this system (in this case trusting your instincts) keeps you safer than a Pollyanna-ish "assume the best in every one" approach, and comes at a lower cost (in terms of restrictions on your daily life) than the opposite extreme of a pessimistic "trust nae fucker" approach.

Have tried both of these tactics.

Being incredibly naive and assuming that everyone is basically a decent person contributed to being raped three times. Trusting no one resulted in half a chronically-depressed decade spent in hermitage. Neither is terribly useful if you want to actually have a life.

Time to reread The Gift of Fear, I think.

There are a few people I have met (men and women) who have had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

A couple of them I didn’t need to see them enter a room to have that creeped out feeling come over me .

Both are well liked thoroughly nice people by all accounts. I just can’t relax in their company.

Re: charm

DeBecker suggests reframing this in your mind- so instead of thinking "This man is charming", you think "This man is trying to charm me." This gives you permission to start examining his motives.

There is nothing "woo" about trusting your instincts! I read the Gift of Fear (amazing book thanks for the link), and the point that stands out is how often people immediately know someone is "off" but they ignore that feeling because of the person's surface presentation.
And the instinct that someone means you harm is not just a feeling. It's also the things they actually do (eg forced teaming, not hearing No) that you can train yourself to notice and not discount.
This is an extremely useful, pragmatic thing to learn, based on evidence.

Totally agree, the thing is men naturally (not all!) will look for a chink in your armour, it’s mainly a natural built in mechanism to gain as much reproduction as possible I believe (not saying they can’t help it!

Bad times certainly does bring them out!

Yes totally , there is nothing like a period of vulnerability to bring all the predators to the surface.
As any separated/divorced woman will tell you.
You just become an instant target. Sadly most of the propositions come from the people you had the most respect for. Like the married husbands of your very best friends. It’s a minefield to navigate.

You know when I got targeted most aggressively in the past few years? When my cat died and I was grieving. It was like being 14 again for a few weeks there in terms of how relentless it was.

Male predators are like sharks but less useful to the environment.

Those saying "sometimes your Spidey senses miss a wrong in, and sometimes you react to someone who actually is a completely normal person" - well, yes, I've experienced both of these. But it doesn't mean it's useless. My day job involves working with stats and predictions based on "exceeding a threshold", and you always get misses and false positives - whether it's health care, weather forecasting, quality control of your widget machine. The question is whether this system (in this case trusting your instincts) keeps you safer than a Pollyanna-ish "assume the best in every one" approach, and comes at a lower cost (in terms of restrictions on your daily life) than the opposite extreme of a pessimistic "trust nae fucker" approach.

As a hitchhiker, I noticed that my mood affected the type men who were more likely to stop, and, surprise, if I was down or weary, the creepy ones were more likely to

This resonates with me. I've had one (mercifully brief) period of clinical depression in my life, and I swear I got hit on more in that six months than the rest of my life in total. And none of them were nice men. I felt like someone had tattooed "vulnerable woman: weirdos queue here" on my forehead.

I think that some people have the point backwards. Nobody's claiming that you can ALWAYS identify EVERY man who wants to harm you. But even if you can only identify a subset of such men, or if your internal alarm triggers a lot of false alarms, it's still a skill worth developing.

I tend to suspect that when people get the point that backwards, it's deliberate.

The real deal dangerous ones can be rich/charming/popular like the corporate psychopath theory. They really can pull off a good show without anyone noticing.

See, I met one of these and he scared really did make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Handsome, superficially charming, the "could sell snow in the Arctic" type. But for some reason he set every alarm system in my body off screaming, and it turned out that he had already harmed other women. I'm glad I trusted that feeling, personally.

And, if you do find someone creepy, you are immediately on your guard.

But many women try to talk themselves out of that feeling, to their detriment, because we're socialized to do so. We would be better off not doing that. Which has been largely the point of the thread, perhaps you didn't notice?

I would never claim that I can always spot a wrong un and I'm always right, I also have no instances where I've been proved right or wrong. I just tried to explain earlier on here how I feel when I'm uncomfortable around someone. I'm very articulate in person but I find it difficult sometimes to get my meaning across in print.
As I said earlier I grew up with an extremely abusive mother so I learned early on that watching and analysing a persons body language was a good thing to do. It's second nature to me now, that doesn't mean that I'll always be able to recognise an abusive person and I'll never be taken in.
If you've ever seen The Terminator films. When he gets the print out about the enemy that's what it's like in my head. Rapid fire information that bypasses any normal means of communication.
It's not woo and it's not nice to live with.
Shit, that definitely sounds woo to me.
As I said earlier, they just look wrong, they're fake, they're trying too hard, they're not real, they're totally false.
If I was a dog my hackles would be totally raised. That's what the making the hair stand up is all about.
I'm only an expert in my reactions, after all I've had 60 odd years to hone them. So I'm just speaking for me.

It takes time to learn to pay attention to the minutia in the information flow that makes up what we call instinct.
DeBecker and some other abused children learn it early, the hard way. Law enforcement agencies provide training in it.
We are too distracted most of the time to notice that minutia. In my experience the people who claim they can spot a wrong'un are few and far between, and usually arrogant men.

this has reminded me about a man a came across professionally - I was actually very impressed with him, a man who worked with pre schoolers, because he had a very straightforward, reespectful way of interacting with small children- nothng cutesy or patronising. Anyway, turned out he had a load of child abuse images on his computer. 'Not the worst kind' the police said. So my instincts were definitely out there.

I’m very anti “woo” but as PP says, since the only real downside of trying to get away from people who give us the creeps is appearing rude to them, that’s OK!

Of course that's ok - as I said in my earlier posts.

But the 'trust your instincts' message is dangerous because people tell themselves they can spot wrong'uns. They (usually) can't. And, if you do find someone creepy, you are immediately on your guard. The people who are a real threat are the ones you like, who seem totally normal, and who mean you harm.

Thinking of recent experiences with colleagues, there was one who was a sexual predator. I wouldn't be his target demographic, and I always thought he had dead eyes. I worked with him for about 4 years, and we barely exchanged words. He also had a habit of looking over your head, into the distance. Watching him trying to engage his victims was interesting- there was a certain tone and enunciation that made him sound like he was acting.

My other colleague is a raging misogynist, and I have been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment from him. I've always suspected he is a domestic abuser. Anyway, he also had poor eye contact, and when he did, it was with contempt and in an appraising way. He had a funny habit of tilting his head and his eyes would dart from side to side. You could actually almost see the cogs turning as he tried to hatch his plans.

The real deal dangerous ones can be rich/charming/popular like the corporate psychopath theory. They really can pull off a good show without anyone noticing.

You know, based on my experience a lot of people DO notice those. I had one as a boss, he was extremely successful at his sales job but literally everyone in the office knew there was something extremely off about him.

I think part of it may have been that he was American and he had honed his scripts and strategies perfectly for other Americans. But his OTT compliments and carefully timed displays of emotional vulnerability were culturally completely "off" for the British and European offices, so there would often be these moments where you could see the wheels turning when his "charm" hadn't landed and he didn't know what to do next. So the cultural aspect probably made him a lot easier to spot. Plus he worked remotely, so office gossip spread easier about him.

I would say watch out for lavish compliments, and watch out for spontaneous confessions that seem to expect reciprocation. He also had an occasional habit, which I personally didn't experience, of saying weirdly innuendo-like, highly sexualised phrases - I remember something about 'double fisting' -- and acting totally innocent and confused when he was mocked for it. The people who saw that all thought he genuinely had no idea what he was saying but i don't know, he was definitely a creepy pervert (I did experience that) so it seems highly unlikely that it wasn't some kind of bizarre creepy-pervert game.

I once met a pedophile who had violently abused dozens of children and yeah, he was adorable I was groomed by one who was a pillar of the community and well liked and respected. My dm was suspicious of him and warned me to be wary, but grooming is incredibly insidious. Like a pp it only slowly dawned on me in recent years that I had been and I still have a vague fondness for him. I can see now how he pushed boundaries, and yeah, the forced teaming. My dm has her own reasons for being wary, and I definitely agree that experience brings a heightened sensitivity to that intangible something and I’m very grateful to her because she planted just enough doubt to give me the courage to be able to break away from him. There was another older woman in the youth group he operated in who, I think now, was keeping a wary eye on him. Telling my df wasn’t an option because he’d either not believe me or he’d kill him.

I vaguely remember a statistic about the percentage of CEOs and MDs who score high on sociopathic personality traits being very high.

Has anyone seen The Push (Derren Brown)? Different scenario but interesting on the tactics used to break down the persons inhibitions and resistance.

Dead or Alive by Geoff Thompson is a very good read too.

@Thegullfromhull your post has also really resonated with me, because something I used to really notice about my ex was that he had an unusual walk. Perhaps in real contrast to this thread, I actually used to find it quite attractive, and I'm trying very hard now to picture whether his palms faced backwards or not but I think they may well have! I know that it seemed to me his arms were almost slightly too long on his body (but not freakishly so!) and I think that's because of the way he held his hands so that could be it. The walk was quite dominant.