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?

Could this person have been a man, OP? It happens. Signals just not quite right, feeling that it is off somehow … usually you can tell immediately though.

No, she was a woman as I previously said, a friend of a friend who I recently met in a social setting.

I was a teacher for years and later a school senior leader. I can think of 5 male teachers that I worked with that later were convicted of sex offences against children, either online grooming and images or sexual abuse.

One was a friend- I liked him and went to parties at his house etc. One was a sleaze and made a sleazy comment to me but I never thought he would be grooming and abusing underage girls. Another one I actually employed and was his boss and never suspected a thing. He was grooming girls online. One other was a bit weird but I just thought he was a bit of an idiot and didn't get the creeps. The worst one was a very popular head of year, I considered him a mate too but years later awful abuse came out and he is now in prison as are some of the others I mentioned.

What terrifies me most here is no one suspected these men- out of scores of staff, leaders- all trained in safeguarding. It's not that I was naive. They were just so devious no one suspected. One of these abusers was actually the school safeguarding lead. I believe that the men who get caught must be the tip of the iceberg. From all the men teachers I knew in a long career 5 were caught. How many were actually abusing children? This is why I'm more worried about what we DON'T intuit than what we do.

@RemoteControlDoobry I once went to a parade in a small village where my Mum was living with her husband

Dressed up in the parade was a young man who waved at children whilst riding a penny farthing. I instantly disliked him and mentioned it to her. She thought he was great (I was like nope). Turned out he had SA a lad he was babysitting and queries of other SA. He got sent down for 9 years. I just couldn't get why my Mum only saw the face he was projecting. Mum hasn't got Autism.

I'm the worst at masking yet still do really badly.. dunno why. I know I stand out from the other daisies.

No-one suspected because intelligent abusers sadly lie well. Children - they see through all the fakery. Grooming relies on being hidden. "Nice male teachers" couldn't possibly do that... sadly they do.

I had the opposite. I met a woman on a group walk and instantly fell in love with her (in a platonic way). I had to be careful not to express it because I didn’t want to frighten her, but we’ve talked since and she felt the same connection. We’ve so much deep stuff in common and the way she’s dealt with trauma is so similar to my way (being outdoors!). She’s brilliant!

@JingleBellez @kagerou It’s so weird you asked if it was baby clothes! Baby related- the item was a Moses basket.

I actually picked one up yesterday from
someone else in the end, with no weird feelings at all, so it was obviously something about that particular one that really affected me. Never felt it before and I’m not at all ‘woo’ but it was such a strong feeling, I couldn’t ignore it.

Yes, a few times. Not when I was younger but in the last few years. The last one was a customer at work.
I would put more stock in this feeling if I was not wrong in thinking a few people were nice!

My son and I are both autistic. Obviously, I don't know whether this would be the same if we weren't because I have no measure but he and I often get strong feelings about people and a need to stay away from them.

These are often people who everyone else really likes and think we've been overly harsh about them (in our own friendship groups).

Other people have then been surprised wjem a person's real self has been revealed later down the line. Nothing serious just someone who appeared to he kind, friendly, supportive who later turned out to be untrustworthy or manipulative.

We've put it down to a type of pattern recognition. When you have to study people and behaviours etc closely to try and understand/make sense of them and focus on the small details rather than the bigger picture, it becomes easy to spot familiar patterns and subtle things a lot of people don't notice - facial expressions, tones of voice etc.

Yes, absolutely. I have a narcissistic mother and I have learned that I get these feelings, just as you describe, around narcissists Narcissists are often extremely charming and friendly, as you say, ‘perfectly polite’ and I think a lot of people who haven’t experienced their behaviour first hand and the trauma they can cause don’t have these strong internal reactions. I have often tried to rationalize away the sensation but it’s pretty much always correct. I should add this doesn’t happen very often but I have learned to trust the reaction and steer clear.

It's only happened to me once, about 10 years ago.

I was starting a new job, and was invited in a couple of weeks before my official start date to meet my line manager. I was introduced to an older woman, perhaps early 50s (I was late 20s at the time), we sat down together and she started talking.
And within 5 minutes I knew I was in the presence of a sociopath. Couldn't, and have never been, able to put my finger on what it was exactly, I just knew. It was so creepy.

I'd have poo-pooed all talk of this other than the fact my best friend was supposed to go away and stay a few days with a friend just before Easter. We went for coffee on Monday and she said she felt a real cloud of doom and just couldn't drive there (350 miles), so she cancelled. Her sister then had a heart attack and she had to dive off and sort things out at her place because husband was working in another country and not due back. Had she gone to her friend's she'd have been over 450 miles away and not really been able to help. Sister is fine BTW, stent fitted and out of hospital.
Friend is wondering if she knew in advance as the cloud of doom over driving the 350 miles has completely lifted, she's going this week instead.

But, erm… you didn’t ‘just know.’ You ‘just suspected.’ In reality a woman spoke to you and you decided she was going to steal your dogs. You don’t know and have no evidence that she ever did steal any dogs. And from your post it doesn’t sound like you’ve ever spotted a sociopath.

Yes. Once I worked in a hotel as a waitress and we shared a dressing room/staff room with the cleaning staff. Loads of people would come and go.
There was this one cleaner who I saw a handful of times into in the staff room...her eyes. Omg. Absolutley dead in the eyes, like a shark. Like she had no soul.
I don't know how else to describe her eyes but something just terrified me about her the second I saw her, like she was pure evil inside.
Otherwise she looked like a perfectly normal, nice lady, very petite and not at all physically intimidating and yet the last time i saw her she walked into the changing rooms and i actually gasped and stood back against the wall in fear. She was polish and i dont think spoke english but seemed totally unphased by my reaction. I never went back in the changing rooms after that to avoid her. I couldn't bare looking at those eyes.
I am not at all woo but this is the first time in my.life I've actually considered if someone might be the devil, or an alien or something supernatural disguised as human.

Twice about men in authority - men in different places we lived and they didn't know each other so two different experiences.Years later I found out I was right both times. Once - about a town we were driving to. As soon as we were approaching the town i felt desperately uneasy. We were going there to meet another couple in a restaurant. They were a lovely couple, the lunch was good but I couldn't wait to leave the place. I've always told my girls to listen to their gut instincts. When they were younger and living at home, I always promised them that if they felt uneasy, I'd drop anything I was doing and get them if they were worried.

Yes I had that feeling. I don't want to post too many details because everyone who knows me knows all the details of this story. Suffice to say she later served seven years for trying to murder someone, and I'm fairly convinced that wasn't the only time.

It's your gut feeling, it's important you listen to it, it's not silly. I had it numerous times. When Jim will fix it for you with Jimmy Saville was on, I'd get a bad feeling. My older siblings said I was stupid because he's a nice kind man. They wished to go on his show. I'd leave the room when it was on. When I was a bit older I had it again with a distant cousin who was nice and very well liked by the family. Turned out he was beating up his wife and tried to strange his child. We only found out, when they disappeared. They ran away to a refuge. My young daughter had a bad feeling, when we were walking past a very handsome and well dressed young man. She asked to go home, because her tummy felt werid as this guy felt evil. She's never said it before, nor since. I believe her 100 percent. It doesn't matter if you're thinking it's irrational or unfounded. We are all animals, and gut feelings are our body reading other people's energy, whether it's good or bad. We should always listen to it.

Not a visceral dislike but quite the opposite!
Over 30 years ago, I was in a bus station waiting for a bus to an important appointment, when I saw a lad about my age. At the same moment he saw me. We were on opposite sides of the bus station. I've never experienced such an immediate and visceral attraction. We just stood looking at each other. He waved, I waved back. He beckoned to me, I indicated the bus I had to get on and shook my head. We were looking at each other and waving until our buses went their separate ways. I have no idea who he was (hope he wasn't an axe murderer!), but I'll never forget that feeling, it was euphoric.

I really didn’t realise how common it was, interesting but maybe not surprising that most are men in these scenarios. Maybe I will post again when I see her next and let you know if feeling still there. It’s tricky because she is becoming a really good friend of my friend so I expect I will see more of her. Our mutual friend mentioned in passing maybe me hosting something at our house ( it’s bigger) but I ignored it as don’t think I want her here!

Wierdly My Gran and ‘the duchess’ (Savile’s mother) were friends from Scarborough. My mother ( in her twenties at the time) said she couldn’t bare to be around her Mum’s friends son and that he gave her the creeps. Their paths didn’t cross often, maybe once or twice, but she was really adamant he was bad news back then. Little did she know at the time…

Someone sent me this the other day - it seems appropriate!

🤣

I’ve just been on another thread about historical deaths that you feel sad about….someone was talking about the Moors murders and I realise that I feel really awful when I go through saddleworth moor (have family near there). But obviously I know what happened there so it’s probably a reaction to that but it makes me feel awful and the place feels very foreboding.

I think that we unconsciously pick up on subtle cues that people give off, but we have to be careful because we could easily misinterpret them. As others have said, it could be something about her was just a little bit unusual and it got your senses tingling. Or it could be that she was feeling frightened or off or something and you picked up on it.

I've had this experience, but it was positive. I typically am attracted to men, but three times I've met women who I almost instantly was deeply attracted to, and who I only found more attractive and desirable the more I got to know them. I'm not talking just sexual attraction, I liked them romantically as well and would happily have dated any one of them. For comparison I've probably felt that same instant attraction to maybe the same amount of men. Anyway, all three of these women were gay or bisexual but I didn't know this until some time after. My explanation for it is that on some unconscious level I picked up that they were either attracted to me too or perhaps just that they were available to that type of advance. I don't know how else to explain the fact that I have never wanted to date a straight woman!

Perhaps you are an empath and have a sense of someone's aura? Trust your gut... Always. Intuition is nature's way of helping us survive!