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

Yea. I had a teacher, back in the day, he was of those ‘I’m so fun, aren’t I great’ teachers who flirted with the girls in a cringey way and acted like the boys were his mates, talking about football etc. He was also a chronic attention seeker, went on a talent show on tv etc. Anyway, I just didn’t like him, he gave me the creeps and his happy go lucky attitude was so false to me.
Found out a year or two ago that he raped several women, filmed the attacks, awful awful stuff that will stay with the victims forever, all over the course of twenty years. His kids were lovely, one in my year and one in brothers year at school, I can’t imagine how traumatising for them it must have been.

A date I went on last year.

We had texted perfectly nicely beforehand but when we actually met, I felt so very deeply uncomfortable. I couldn't even look him in the eye and he had a very piercing gaze. I was actually afraid of him.

I can chat shit to anyone but to this guy, I couldn't think of a thing to say. I just wanted to get away as soon as possible. It was like my brain refused to make conversation so the date could end quicker and I could get safe.

He walked me to the bus stop and whilst waiting for a bus, asked me how I felt about choking during sex. I leaped onto the bus as soon as it arrived without so much as a goodbye!

@Sharontheodopolodous glad you were ok, and thanks to your dog. Really frightening experience. I had the same when out walking with my loveable little working cocker. We were walking through some woods, fields which we have walked the same walk for a couple of years. It is beautiful, and i have always felt safe until a man out of nowhere was following me. I felt such an unease about him, which i have never experienced before or after. Not once had my dog reacted to any other dog walker, walker we had seen on past walks but towards this guy, my dog was going mental. He was on a lead but he was definitely looking out for me on that day. The guy run off in the opposite direction but I am sure if it wasn't for my faithful little dog I would of come to harm. Haven't had the feeling since.

I worked with a man once, who terrified me. I did everything to avoid being on my own with him.

You get the same thing with buildings. I was in a babysitting circle years ago. Once I went to sit in a house for the first time. It was terrifying and I refused to go down the corridor into the kitchen.

It happens occasionally. Once on a dog walk I spotted a woman from quite a distance and instantly knew she was trouble. Had a visceral response to her.

I carried on walking toward her because it was a busy area and as I walked past she asked very direct questions about how old my dogs were and were we going to the common over the road. Without even thinking I said “Why are you asking?” and she said that she used to be a dog walker. She’d shown no affectionate interest in the dogs whatsoever.

I knew she was a dog thief and I warned people on Next Door but they didn’t take my gut instinct seriously. There was a dog stolen a few days later and of course I’ll never know if it was her, but I know I was right about her. I’ve met many hundreds people on my dog walks and it’s never happened before.

Yes. Someone pretending to help me as a disabled young woman. He ended up sexually assaulting me. Now I listen to my intuition a lot more.

God that just gave me goosebumps

What a horrible thing to have happened. I’m so sorry you went through this. How are you now.

My sister in laws ex boyfriend. He was so jovial, life and soul of the party but the moment my husband and I met him, our senses went off. We couldn’t work out why we didn’t like him, but something wasn’t right, and wouldn’t let our children near him. He gradually isolated her from her family, went through her money and it finally ended when she got the police involved as he was physically and emotionally abusing her. He had previous form for doing this to newly single women.

No there’s a similar story in Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test (?) about a man pretending to be insane but in fact was a psychopath and ended up stuck in Broadmoor trying to convince everyone he wasn’t insane. Or something like that!

I was on a train to London a man got on at the stop prior - Milton Keynes? I was at a table seat myself but it was a strange configuration, there were 3 seats opposite each other rather than 2 and then a small table infront of the 2 seats facing each other closest to the window. I was on the right hand seat beside the window facing direction of travel. Man sat on left hand seat so opposite me and 2 seats over. He was an ethnic man, he had really great facial bone structure and big bright eyes. Visually, he was someone that would catch your eye. I dont mean attractively but there was something about him that put me on alert. He had a hooded jumper on and hood up. As the train moved on i could feel him looking at me from time to time. I felt frozen to my seat and didnt no what to do. After a short time he moved to the middle seat opposite and my heart was pounding there was something not right but i remember thinking i didnt want to look like a racist and move for no reason (even though no one would likely have thought twice if i moved seat!). Anyway he then moved to sit directly opposite me at the othrr side of the table. He put his hand on my left leg just above my knee. I think my heart stopped for a second, i thought he was going to pull a knife out or who knows what. I dived up and ran through every carriage. I was terrified. I was terrified getting of the train incase he saw me again. It wasnt just the hand on leg. There was something not right about that man.

A father of a childhood friend, I would hate going round to her house to play as his presence frightened the life out of me. I would always make excuses so she could come to mine.
Came out years later he had sexually abused his daughter

Years and years ago I used to ride a horse belonging to a chap.
I bumped into him when I was with my mum in the feed store one day. Obviously stopped to say hello and chatted/introduced my mum.
When I was in the car after I asked why she was so off with him. She said she just had the most awful feeling about him and didn’t like him at all.
Some time later (months/years? I’d stopped riding the horse by then anyway) it came out that he’d previously done time in prison for sexually assaulting minors. He ultimately committed suicide.

The only time I’ve ever had something similar has been watching Paul on the traitors lately. My goodness he made my skin crawl.

Those instincts are there for a reason. I was always creeped out by my uncle, as was my dad, he told me years later. Turned out he'd been abusing my cousins, and had been sacked from several jobs for sexual harassment.

A man walked up to my teen dd who was looking through books in a charity shop. I watched her recoil quite dramatically when he approached her and I thought he'd said something to her. He just backed off with his hands in the air saying "I didn't do anything". Dd was very shaken and once home told me she felt him before she'd even caught eye contact and he gave her this awful deep sick feeling. She was actually quite unwell and shook up for the rest of the day.

Years ago I had a lovely very mild mannered Springer. He loved everyone, never showed any aggression. Once we went camping in the Lakes and some “friendly” older bloke approached our tent to apparently be sociable. The dog went absolutely apeshit until the bloke backed off. No idea what that was about but felt pretty sure he was a wrong’un.

On the flip side, fast forward to now and I have a terrier who barks like mad at everyone and won’t go near anyone he doesn’t know (bad experience as a pup). One day our shopping was delivered and the guy asked about the dog because he could see him in the window. I said he’s scared of people. The guy said, he won’t be scared of me. I know this sounds mad but I have a green aura that only dogs can see. If you let him come I’ll show you. So I called my dog to the doorstep and he looks at this guy who is now crouching down outside the door. Well f me, the dog walks up to him, climbs on his knee and licks his cheek! I couldn’t believe it.

Another one which I’ve posted before.
My friend had a new bf, every time he came to my house with her my dog (rough collie) would be on full alert and stand by me. The bf kept trying to stroke her despite me saying just leave her.
One Wednesday they came round and my dog leapt up on her hind legs barking and snarling. I could see this was going to happen and so had grabbed her collar and she didn’t get to him.
Two days later he beat my friend and left her for dead. She physically recovered but spent about a week in hospital.
My friend was the kindest, loveliest person you could meet.
Gut instincts and dogs instincts are real and should be acted on.
Reading about Rose and Fred West, Levi Bellfield and others is scary. Hiding in plain sight.

mine is very, very similar to this

a child, the most scary moment of my life.

My Aunty's husband (I can't bear to call him my Uncle). I was terrified of him when I was little and when I was a teenager I could never relax around him. Apparently, when I was little he'd get upset because I always burst into tears whenever I saw him. He was very tall and loud and as soon as he saw me, he would pick me up and touch my head on the ceiling, whilst I screamed and everyone told me to stop making a fuss as he was only playing. Many years later he savagely attacked my Aunty, putting her in a wheelchair and it turned out that he used to beat his daughters up on a regular basis, which had been kept secret from the rest of the family. I think even young children can sense when there is something "off" about someone.

Not so woo. I was going to take a shortcut through an empty park. The man walking in front of me was going the same way. He turned round and clocked that I was going to go through the park. A look of such evil glee came over his face that I turned round and scarpered.

When I was 18 I went out for a drink with some friends and one of my friends had a new boyfriend. He made me feel really uncomfortable, he had this piercing gaze and would just stare at you and not break eye contact. He got really aggressive with my BF at the time because he misheard something and I just had this feeling that we needed to leave so we ended up leaving pretty quickly.

He later killed Sally Anne Bowman.

I'm so sorry to those of you having had horrid experiences.

To the poster who's pal was harassed by levi bellfield, that made me sick.
I'm a very squeamish person but I'd happily kick that cunt until he resembled a big dead blob of jelly. I mean, he'd have to be sedated and it couldn't be a fair fight but I proper detest him and I'm really quite against corporal punishment. (He's my exception!)

These threads always go the same way. Lots of confirmation bias, people remembering someone who creeped them out and then finding out they were Fred West/Rose West/Levi Bellfield/Jimmy Saville/or were less famous but had done something awful nonetheless. I think it’s the slight air of self-congratulation that bothers me, as if the victims should all have read The Gift of Fear and listened to their instincts, when the fact is, most criminals, conmen etc are perfectly ordinary in appearance and behaviour. If they all gave off a massive sensation of evil, they wouldn’t be as ‘successful’ at finding victims.

Another poster already mentioned Suzie Lamplugh but was it around that time? If so was it John Canan (sorry I dint know if I've spelt that correctly, I believe it's pronounced ca-nan, hence the spelling but I'm really not sure!) But he is the only suspect in suzie's disappearance?
So glad you were safe ❤

When I was a teenager attended a church with a minister who, from the first time I saw him, made me suspicious. Every time he took the service the hairs on the back of my neck raised and I wanted to leave.
He never did or said anything dubious around me. Since moved from the area so not even heard anything else since. So could be completely wrong. Have never forgotten his face or the sense of unease.