bit woo- but have you ever met anyone you have felt scared of for no reason?

[crochetmonkey74]

I'm fascinated by stories like this- when you meet someone and they don't necessarily do anything - more that you just feel scared- intuition etc

I'm nearly 50 and it's happened once very strongly (was justified I later came to find out) and once not as strongly - so it's not a regular occurrence, but stories like this really interest me

I know someone whose ex-wife has been on breakfast TV saying that he beat her up. He did, badly. He jumped out of an open window to catch her too. When I knew him, through my DB, I didn't bat an eyelid, it took a while for it to come out.

Then I found out he was dating my best friend who'd just had a baby and he'd moreorless moved in with her quickly. Or was staying over a lot. One day I went round and up the stairs to the flat where she lived and he was standing at the top of the stairs, smiling an evil grin but like he was joking around. In that moment I knew he wasn't right. My friend had just seen his ex-wife being interviewed on breakfast TV and luckily finished with him not long after this. I told her what he'd done anyway, in case he hadn't mentioned it. He ended his life over covid.

It doesn’t contradict what people are saying though, it just means that the most successful killers are the ones who are best at not giving off those vibes.
Nobody is saying everyone who has ever killed would have been prevented if only victims had listened to their instincts.

@Sharontheodopolodous I had a similar experience with 11 year old in a family I worked with. I sensed he was very angry but he masked it well. He would slyly when he thought he was unobserved, make his baby brother cry and bullied his younger siblings. When I asked him what he wanted to do when he left school he said he wanted to join the army and become a sniper. My blood ran cold. I have the feeling that if I’d continued to live in the area I would have read about him in the papers.

Please join my personal campaign never to use the phrase "child p*rn". Porn is acceptable to many. Think food porn or property porn.

What happens to children is not acceptable. Please use the phrases

child sexual abuse material (CSA material)
child sexual exploitation material (CSE material)

Please everyone never use those 2 words together we need to reinforce the crime, every time.

I've met Jimmy Savile when he was filming his TV show as I raised money for his charity, no bad vibes off him.

I was at secondary school and the art teacher (male) was such a pervert, would try it on with all the girls, including me. He always made my skin crawl. He used to go out with 5th/6th formers and take them to the local pub and as he was in a band he was popular. He was/is a complete and utter creep. The worst thing was, was that he'd ask me directly, in front of the entire class, why I didn't like his attention, was I scared of him and make filthy gestures. All the other girls went along with his spiel.

I had a similar thing when in a hotel in Chipping Norton for a training course. My room was huge compared to those of my colleagues and I was feeling rather smug about it until I got really bad vibes about being in there, like I wasn't alone. I asked the receptionist upon leaving and she said that those who worked there considered the room to be haunted - marvellous.

Not me but my late mum.
A gentleman called at the house one evening doing a survey, perfectly normal looking man apparently, nothing that stood out as sinister but my mum had a very uneasy feeling about him matched, very uncharacteristically, by her labrador dog who was very normally placid and very good natured.
This one night he clocked this gentleman and his hackles went up, he bared his teeth and growled like my mum said she'd never heard him growl before.
This was the dog that we always joked would happily let a burglar in because anyone, and I mean anyone, normally coming to the door, workmen, strangers the like, got licked to within an inch of their life.
But there was something about this man that he obviously picked up on.
I'm glad the dog was there to be honest. He didn't stick around.

Wow. That was a lucky escape.

It's happened to me twice. Both were men I had contact with for professional reasons (I was the customer in both cases) but they both gave me an overwhelming sense of creepiness, fear and unease.

In both cases, nothing un-toward happened: both men were polite and professional in their dealings with me, but in both cases I would not have wanted to be alone with either of them for any length of time. Very odd .... glad to read it's not just me.

Well that’s woo right there. I was just thinking about what I’m about to write when I read this.
Probably about 31/2 years ago (1992) when I was 18/19. I was waiting for a train at a major London railway station that heads to East Anglia - I’d accidentally got on the wrong stationary train. When back on the concourse a woman came up to me and asked where I was going. I told her thinking she was a fellow passenger. She said that there wasn’t a train for a while so offered for me to go with her on the train to a station near my destination where her husband was waiting and that he would give me a lift home. I thought it was well weird and wondered if I knew the woman as it was so direct. I politely said no. She came again three or four times before she got on the train and asked the same thing - with more urgency each time. I wanted to point out that it was a weird thing to offer a young stranger. I had very very bad vibes and was so thankful that she was asking me and not one of my friends who was always looking for a ‘deal’ and excitement. I remember her glasses and her earrings very clearly and it wasn’t until years later that I realised that it was Rose West.

Yes - twice.

First one: had a first date with a man I met online when my kids were a lot younger. He was a bit too touchy feely, even though I only met him in public, but the visceral ick I got from him was stronger than could be explained just by that. I went home, told him I didn't want to see him again and left it at that.

A couple of years later, I made a new best friend at my new job. We got to chatting about her ex-boyfriend who had been domestically abusive towards her and sent to prison for child rape. The unusual name was familiar ... I asked to see a photo and it was him. A very lucky escape...

I now consider myself to have a radar for domestic abusers, I am available for hire. 😂

Second one: I was visiting Glastonbury and went into one of the little shops that sells tarot cards, crystals etc. Glanced at the guy on the till and it was like walking into a brick wall, all my senses screamed 'evil'. It was so weird. I got out as fast as I could and didn't buy anything. No idea if that one was justified or not but it was such a strong feeling.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel I think one can avoid dangerous situations by being in tune with one’s intuition BUT you are correct in that the most dangerous people are generally the best at masking their sociopathy, narcissism, personality disorders etc — in fact they are conmen but not not necessarily of the type motivated by the desire to steal your money. It takes an expert to spot one of these

@Longdarkcloud I feel awful saying anything bad about a child

He was a child who went through hell,both before and after he was taken into care

No child deserves what he went through

I do know of another-shes 5 years old but is much 'older' if that makes sense

It's been commented on that she will grow up and end up in prison (not by me but I privately agree)

It's her eyes-im not joking,she's dead behind them and her behaviour and language is awful

Her parents are unbelievably lazy at parenting which makes it worse for her-she needs a much firmer hand (I'm not saying wallop her!)

I hope to God she gets help and is put on the straight and narrow for her own sake

She's 5 for god sake-i know she's only small but if someone doesn't step In,she'll end up banged up for doing something bad to someone

Many years my grandma was walking to the bus stop from work one evening it was winter so dark and she says a vehicle was following her to the bus stop. She saw the man in the street light and was utterly terrified, so much so that she ran into a pub and got a drink and waited until a couple of young women were leaving to go to the bus stop. She said she knew he was evil, it was the height of the ripper enquiry so she went to the police and have a description of him and the vehicle but she was dismissed… after some rough questioning to see if she was a “prossie” or not. Of course when he was court and his face was in the papers it was the man she had described.
My own is also a notorious murderer. I worked at the same company as this man, every night the drivers had to come into the office and bring their paperwork in so we could input it to the system. Most drivers would pass the time of day with you whilst they dropped in the papers and went through any issues on route. This guy would always hang around, gossiping to the girls (I was 17 at the time), bringing in donuts, asking if we needed lifts home. Honestly everyone loved him. He was the last word in normal, one of the women lived in the same street as him and he babysat her children so we all took him at face value. At this time he had the body of a young girl hidden in his freezer. There was no woo. This guy was hiding in plain sight and you honestly wouldn’t have known what a monster he was.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21172062/who-is-murderer-john-taylor/

I have never thought of it like that before, but yes, it isn't really pornography, it's images of child rape and degradation. 'Porn' suggests consent.

@JenniferJupiterVenusandMars omg so haunting, lucky escape doesn't cover it!
We had an electrician as a bit of a last minute finish up job for a project managed by our builder. Electrician gave our builder and me the creeps so badly I found myself asking builder to make sure the kids got nowhere near him. Apparently even our lovely dog growled at him.
So weird how some people are just
...wrong...

I don’t think porn necessarily implies consent, but it puts the focus on the sexual pleasure of the person consuming the material.

”Certain areas of the country” just sounds snobbish.

You're wrong actually, places have vibes too.

My friend lived in Gloucester in the 1980s and was once followed home by a creepy, weird bloke. She told the police and they said he was known to be a pest, but as he hadn’t actually done anything to her, there wasn’t much they could do. His name was Fred West.

In the interests of balance, there was once an unhealthy looking man in his forties that I was strongly repelled by. He was dating an attractive younger woman from Eastern Europe. Whenever I saw this man, I had to fight the urge to run away screaming. It was really weird. For a while, I expected to hear that the police had found bodies under his floorboards, but that was about 15 years ago and nothing has happened. So my strong instincts may have been wrong.

I used to live in a tiny village in Yorkshire. There wasn't much there, not even a post office, so l used to go to the one in the next village.
I was new to the area, and l was delighted that there was a proper old fashioned sweetshop next door to the post office.
I went in to buy some sweets and the man in there gave me the creeps.
I'm ex police, and very rarely has anyone given me the vibe he gave off. He seemed perfectly pleasant and personable on the face of it, but there was just something 'off' about him.
I don't know how long the shop had been there, but the next time l went to that village, it was closed. I've no idea why, or what happened, I didn't know anyone there who l could ask, but he definitely set off my spidey senses.

Well of course and apologies if what I said was insulting, though to be fair the poster did describe a lot of the other men on the ward as “frankly intimidating “.

I still think most people would feel safer sharing a room with a bloke who had fiddled his tax returns than a man with schizophrenia.

That isn't the way I saw your post ending when I read the first couple of lines 😂

I admire his dedication.

Years ago my landlord showed some prospective new tenants around the flat I was about to move out of...I felt really uncomfortable with one of the men, but what really freaked me out is that my cat took complete exception to him as well, and started yowling and hissing at him with no provocation at all!

On the subject of dogs picking up on people or maybe our body language. I once renovated a house and due to finding a rental difficult to find I ended up buying a caravan for us to live in for a few months. Long and short of it but I bought the caravan cheaply from some people within the travelling community.

The day the caravan arrived 4 guys delivered it and the main guy kept me chatting and the other three scattered and were "casing the joint" basically, looking round the sides of house, the shed the garage etc.

My dog is a basset hound, not at all known to be aggressive and I have never known one bite someone. They are well known to be floppy soppy family dogs. Mine has never snarled or growled at anyone or anything.

She was upstairs in a bedroom and could see out the window (they are low) onto the driveway with me interacting with these guys and I guess it must have been my body language, but she went absolutely ballistic. She sounded like a really angry rottweiler or what I imagine an XL bully would sound like in full flight. In the 13 years I have had her she has never done that before or since. The main guy actually said Blimey, that sounds like a very big angry dog. To be honest if I didn't know she was my dog I would have been frightened to go into the house for the noise she was making.

The guys were actually fine and never came back and caused any trouble and in fact I sold the caravan back to them (at a great loss) when I was done with it (it was still cheaper than renting). Dogs rule.

One other occasion I saw a guy standing up by a bar in France one evening in a ski resort. Busy bar and he was just standing with a pint. He made my flesh absolutely crawl, there was something so predatory and creepy about him. Still, some 15 years later I can picture his face and it makes my hackles rise.

I also get the creeps with the 3 TV presenters already mentioned As well as Mark Zucckrrberg - I wonder if it is something to do with their strange faces?

I used to ,feel the same donkeys years ago with the actor Roy Kinnear.