Do you ever get a strange feeling about someone ( or something?)

[Trixiefirecracker]

I recently met someone, just a friend of a friend, and had a really visceral gut feeling about her and not in a good way. It made me feel so uncomfortable and I felt really awkward around her, like she might know what I was thinking. I have no idea why this happened and has never happened before, there was no obvious reason for it. She was perfect polite. However It felt like all the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and something about her really rattled me.Has anyone else ever had this experience and were they ‘right’ about their gut feeling?

One man who had always given me a creepy vibe, had work dealings with for several years. DP knew him too and couldn’t understand why I felt that way.
He had never been anything other than polite and friendly towards me, nothing at all to make me feel uncomfortable, I couldn’t explain why.
He was arrested last year over child porn.
DP was gobsmacked when he found out.
Over the years I come across various people who have made me feel uncomfortable but I’ve always managed to get away from them fairly quickly.
I once ran from a man I passed on a corridor going to a multi story car park. He hadn’t said a word, just looked me right in the eye and I had a really frightening feeling about him. I glanced over my shoulder to see he’d stopped and turned towards me and I was off down the stairs like a shot. Absolutely no idea what it was about him.
I’m not an easily spooked person.

I went to school with a guy who gave me weird vibes. He turned out to be a paedophile and then it came out that he was also diagnosed as autistic, a year or so after I left school.

I pointed out to my friends that lots of people are autistic and not paedophiles when they were (sort of) defending him. This guy had seemed different at school but I'm not sure if people were picking up on the autism or the sexual predator in him, or both.

Yes. I've had it a couple of times with people who I've felt particularly uncomfortable with on first meeting. One was our new neighbour when we lived in our old house. Perfectly pleasant man but there was something I couldn't put my finger on about him and I always made sure I didn't speak to him on my own for any length of time. We found out after we'd moved that he'd got done for upskirting in our local town.

The paper is Sasson et al (2017), "Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments": https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700

The authors don't suggest that it's because of the eyebrow thing btw, that was someone answering a different question on TikTok. I think she was a physio or something, as she was talking about musculoskeletal differences common in autistic people (poor posture, sitting cross-legged in chairs, t-rex arms, sleeping folded up like a pretzel, etc ).

I had this with a woman I randomly encountered. I think it was only afterwards that I remembered we'd done jury service together, for one trial. So we'd spent a few days together, probably without even knowing each other's name let alone anything else about each other.

Sorry I had to laugh at this, Tourette’s comes in handy sometimes
please don’t take this the wrong way, my DD has it, so I do know how crap it can be as well

It really can haha! Of all the unfortunate tics I've had, that was probably one of the most correct

Every time I see a photograph of the man who murdered Angelica Kluk I feel almost triggered, as if I knew him years ago. I don't remember ever meeting him, it's quite an unsettling feeling, just from a photograph.

And I forgot ( posted earlier). One of my daughters wanted us to meet her serious boyfriend. He drove up, got out of his car and my heart sank like a stone. I'd been so looking forward to meeting him and I was suddenly absolutely petrified for her. I was incredibly polite and welcoming (am dram came in very useful, here!) but I was desperate for him to leave. He cheated on her with her best friend....

He had murdered before Angelika. They found that poor missing girl from Bathgate Vicky Hamilton under his home floorboards down South. He also killed Dinah MacNicol - Dinah had lost her Mum in a car accident - he spent her inheritance.

He had 60 home addresses and 40 aliases so sadly you may know him.

My sister used to live in a flat in Southsea. I think it used to be a hotel. Horrible horrible feeling in there.

About trusting your dog's opinion of people - I don't have a dog of my own, but always talk to or pet them in the street. But recently I was on a course of steroids for an illness, and they couldn't stand me! Must have made me smell like I was looking for trouble!

Omg wrong post! I meant the opposite.

This is addressed in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.

A fascinating read!

"The Book in One Sentence
Blink explains what happens when you listen to your gut feeling, why these snap judgments are often much more efficient than conscious deliberating, and how to avoid your intuition leading you to wrong assumptions.

Why should you read it?
We constantly make decisions that lead us to either success or failure. These decisions can be made quickly, or they can be made after thorough deliberation. This book will show you that the latter is not always the correct answer. You’ll learn that, sometimes, quick and instinctive decisions can be good as slow, deliberate ones. It will also teach you when to trust your gut and when to ignore it, and how to make the best use of it overall."

https://fourminutebooks.com/malcolm-gladwell-books/

I met a friend's new partner, just in passing - I bumped into them together. I had an immediate feeling of unease about him. Nothing hugely sinister just an 'oh, I am not sure about you' feeling. I sort of immediately felt a little disappointed for her but quickly pushed it to one side. It transpired he was leading a double life. When I found out I thought back to that initial meeting. I wonder if when meeting new people, he gave some sort of 'non-verbal' fear/shifty response just in case this new person knew him from his 'other life'. It must have always been a risk meeting new people (especially without notice) - in case his two worlds collided.

I have also read the 'gift of fear', a truly fascinating book - you should never ignore that immediate instinctive response.

That 'Gift of Fear' (by Gavin de Becker) book is very good, worth reading. I use a quote from it occasionally:

'Can you imagine an animal reacting to the gift of fear the way some people do, with annoyance and disdain instead of attention? No animal in the wild suddenly overcome with fear would spend any of its mental energy thinking 'It's probably nothing''

Always listen to your intuition. Also from the book:

Intuition is always right in at least two important ways; it is always in response to something and it has your best interests at heart.

Sadly I have a stern looking face which puts people off me initially but as they get to know me they warm to me . It's worked in my favour in one way because I've never been hassled on the street even in really tough areas .

I'm reading this thread and panicking about accidentally giving off bad vibes?! I am a relatively nice person I hope but have a RBF sometimes... What if people think I be have shark eyes?! Anyone else or just me? !

Yeah, me too. I have a fearsome RBF and can frighten myself sometimes. I think it's to do with having a naturally frowny face and dark eyes, it makes me look critical. I had to learn to smile more and that helps.

Yep, autistic and nobody warms to me 😂 must be radiating bad vibes all over the place.

I have a bad feeling about a group member but others like her why is that