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

A long time ago I had a holiday job working in a bookies. One guy used to really give me the creeps, to this day if I think about him I can see his smile and his eyes and feel how they used to affect me. He wasn't rude, he wasn't aggressive or nasty in any way but there was just this dodgy aura about him. He was a regular and then suddenly we never saw him again. Turned out he had been arrested for murdering his wife. He had put her down the cellar and it was discovered when her family came over to this country and started asking questions about her whereabouts. In a job I had many years later working for a charity I could never take to the chair person. He was charm itself but there was something "off" about him. It later came to light that he had been sexually abusing some of the vulnerable clients and also fiddling his expenses. He was a racist too just to add to the horror.

This has happened twice to me! Once when I was 15, doing my work experience in a school (my old primary). One of the teacher’s husbands turned up to bring something and he was the friendliest man, charming, funny. He was the headteacher at a local primary so well known and quite well liked. He immediately sent me into a panic I couldn’t describe or explain. Turns out he was a paedophile and was caught months later with hidden cameras.

Second is a child that lives on my mother’s street. There’s no reason for it particularly other than he completely lacks boundaries, will say disgusting things to get a reaction etc. But his eyes are completely cold and dead, like he’s plotting the worst possible things in his mind whilst he’s talking to you, along with a smile that could rival Norman Bates. If he’s in the news in a few years for something truly horrifying, it will be the least shocked I’ve ever been in my life.

There are two blokes in our village that set my spidey senses off.

One of them is our primary school's caretaker. He has his fingers in loads of 'During school and after school kids activity' pies - i mean lots of people involved with the school do, which is great - but with him only it concerns me strangely. He always seems to be manhandling the kids in a 'jokey' way, and finding reasons to have them out of class to 'help' him with stuff around the school. He's sort of ... fawning and odd with us (parents and staff)(i am/have been both) and i just don't bloomin' like him!!
I find myself watching him like a hawk when ever he's in view. I did try and casually raise it, but no one really latched on to what i was on about so i gave up. The day i walked through the playground between lessons and saw him alone with my youngest and sort of rough-arsing about with her (she was yr 3)(on the way on a little errand for her teacher iirc) i marched over and told her she needed to hurry on to class and when she'd gone i gave him a very.hard.stare and said best not to stop the kids when they're moving through the school please. No smiles. It left me shakey! Not like me. It was all i could do to stop myself shouting don't ever touch my kid again. To be honest i want to just shout at him to leave all the kids alone! But he's everybody's bloody mate isn't he ... 😣

The other is the happy go lucky odd job, saves cats up trees, gets cars out of ditches guy of the village. As above - he's bloody everywhere and into everything but nothing specific (it's like that in a village but seriously you can't fart without turning round and finding HE's there)(He's shit at any repair jobs he does as well! There i said it!) But he's in with all the elderly who think he's wonderful cos he turns up within seconds.
The thing is, once again, he's a bit overly 'handy' with people's kids. A bit too intensely jolly with them. I've noticed once they're past the age of about 6 or 7 they tend to sort of back off from him. Y'know? They're smiling but it's a bit 'not sure about this guy now' sort of smiling. I can't put my finger on it, but i get the chills when i picture him alone. DH shares my feeling, but once again it's that - is anyone else thinking this?! I don't know.

There's no big AND THEN HE WAS ARRESTED FOR MURDER with this one sorry. It's just me and my twitchiness with these 2 blokes. Hard to describe these things isn't it?

One teacher at dc primary. Very unnerving. He’s actually left teaching and was done for domestic violence against his now ex wife.

A very damaged child in the care system.
As a social worker, I met a lot of children like this, sadly, but this particular one had a string of indicators and frankly awful actions behind him. I'm not the only one who is certain that there are many more to come.

A few years ago now, a woman working in a hospital coffee shop gave me the fear. She didn't do or say anything out of the ordinary, but as soon as she looked at me i wanted to run a mile. I'd go so far as saying i felt repulsed, and it was a purely gut reaction. I'm the most unwoo person & have worked in jobs where i've dealt with some dodgy characters, some have made me feel alert/on my guard but i've never had such a visceral "I need to leave NOW" response to a seemingly benign woman before.

These are not woo at all, just your gut telling you something is not right. You are reading the other person's body language and tone unconsciously so that is where the feeling comes from.

If it feels woo, it's because you have been so conditioned by TV to think that evil people look obviously evil.

As another poster said, there is a great book about this phenomenon called Gift Of Fear.

An ex-neighbour, just never ever wanted him to be in my house, strong stay away from my children vibes. He confirmed my bias when he made some really inappropriate remarks about my daughter. Another neighbour later said he’d actually told her that he’d surreptitiously photographed her teenage children while they were sunbathing in the garden - a very strange character as he actually boasted about having done it many years later.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if something came out in future linking him to paedophile activities.

You poor thing! I've been watching this girl on Instagram who specialises in female personal safety and she has some great tips on what to do in situations like this. Eg always pretend there is a man in the house if possible (eg asleep/in shower) or if that's not possible pretend that you are expecting a bloke to pop round any time and tell them (eg brother/dad/mate). You can also buy a pair of guy's shoes from a charity shop to leave in plain sight by the door. The Instagram girl is dannah_eve . I would recommend her account!

I've had this a few times. Two stick in my mind. As a child my grandparents had some friends. She was lovely, he was absolutely not. Used to stare at me and ask me to sit on his lap. I was shy so I never did but he terrified me. His whole aura was evil.

Introduced to a woman who had been employed within my family. Immediate visceral stomach churning dislike. She smiled and was chatty but had dead, shark like eyes. Much longer story obviously, but 13 years later I found out she was having an affair with my husband. The absolute hellish abuse I've had off this woman you wouldn't believe. Utterly malignant and evil through and through. Turned out I was far from the only one who thought the same. I imagine my ex will leave their house in a box ⚰️

A couple came into my shop ( both female) & I could see that one of the women was desperately trying to please the other. I have never seen anyone look at another person the way that woman looked at her partner & I went physically cold. It was all I could do not to tell that poor lady to run & never look back! The utter contempt was palpable. I have never had such a strong reaction to a stranger before.

No one can say what it is about individuals that fires this instinct, but I have a (very layperson's) theory on this one. My father gave everyone the creeps. My friends wouldn't come to the house when I was a kid. He was an abusive psychopath who once smashed my head down a door and gave me concussion.

I felt I never knew this man, that he was a shell of a person and I had no idea what he was like underneath. Some decades later a therapist suggested that with psychopaths there's likely nothing underneath, and that once you take away empathy people are pretty much the same. That's the reason for The Script. It's as though absusers have a textbook somewhere: even their methods don't very all that much. It's actually uncanny how similar they are.

Whatever my father was or wasn't, the other kids could see it. I'm not sure it's possible to look at a person and see evil, although their mannerisms do make it possible to discern ill-intent. But I do think it's possible to see through a person to what they are not, if that makes sense.

The Gift of Fear is a good book, albeit a bit dated now and it sometimes strays too close to victim-blaming for comfort. But some of its advice could still be life-saving. The 'gut feeling' may not be 100% accurate, but measure the consequences of ignoring it if you're wrong against the worst-case scenario if you're right.

It should always be acted upon.

Definitely no urban myth for me and my friend. Clearly the railway police recognised that something was amiss, thank goodness.
It was late evening, very few people around.
I can still recall everything, I was 17 at the time, I’m 70 now.

I don't know about no reason, but when I was in recovery from hip surgery, I was able to hobble to the small park opposite the hospital. If I ever saw anyone, male and looking unpredictable, like with MH issues, homeless or drunk/ high- I would suddenly be terrified and freeze in fear. I think it was the fact that I knew I could not run away, or even walk away quickly and confidently as I was on crutches, healing etc. People like that normally don't bother me one bit, but when I was vulnerable they all looked like axe murderers to me!

Yes! A local restaurant sat us next to a couple and without even looking at the guy next to me, my stress levels went through the roof. Feeling uneasy, back of neck prickles. I just couldn't relax and I was trying to talk myself down and block him out without success. I wasn't even looking at him (too scared!) As he got up to leave he turned round to look at his partner and I saw his eyes - he had eyes that were totally dead. I was repulsed by the sight of them. As soon as they left I relaxed and I realised it wasn't me being silly, he was genuinely 'off' and it was affecting me very badly.

DH said later that his conversation with his poor partner was interesting, he'd been in prison, couldn't read and he was very controlling of her. I think it might have been a first date! 😮

I read somewhere that people send out electrical fields from their heart, to around 5 feet away. I thought this is ridiculous woo but I googled it and apparently there are research papers so possibly not. I definitely can get good vibes and occasionally bad vibes off people, depending on how observant / self absorbed I'm feeling. But that man was another level of vibes.

Friend of mine did. She was with her children (very good looking family) and waiting for husband sitting in an upmarket hotel lobby. A bloke came and sat right opposite them (even though plenty of empty seats elsewhere) and just sat there staring at the kids and grinning. He tried to open a conversation but she felt so uncomfortable that she moved herself and family away to other seats. She didn't have a clue who the bloke was at the time but later when the story broke on the news she realised it was Jeffrey Epstein.

This is a really odd one but Jacob Rees-Mogg gives me the chills. I can’t look at him and have to change over if he is on the TV. He really terrifies me, and it’s not just because he’s a Tory, he just makes my blood run cold!

I agree these feelings are not woo. Apart from the more obvious signs like dead eyes and cold or menacing looks that some have described, there are the ones who are obviously fake in how the act and present themselves. Why be fake if the real you is OK?
There was a kid when I was about 8-10 who wasn't a friend but sometimes turned up and joined our group, very outgoing. I'm not sure what it was, but I always literally ran away home after he'd appeared. I tried not to, and told myself I wouldn't but couldn't help it. I once had to sit next to him in a car and had to pretend I was ill because I couldn't help crying. No idea if he went on to be a murderer!

There's no big AND THEN HE WAS ARRESTED FOR MURDER with this one

I often wonder if people who meet my ex sense anything about him. It wasn't until I was away from him that I realised quite how dangerous he was. A psychotherapist I spoke to said he had strong psychopathic tendancies (although that was just from what I had said about him, talking through my own trauma, not trying to bad mouth him). To the outside world he came across as the life and soul of the party, great fun and helpful (when it suited him, unavailable when it didn't but that unavailability in reality would be him putting the asker on his forever hate list for having the audacity to ask anything of him); to me, behind closed doors, he was very different. There were occasions when the mask slipped in company but it didn't happen often and not many people witnessed it, to my knowledge. And there he is, going about his business, being the big I am, but he will never be held to account for the dreadful things he has done to me and others. It would mean so much to me to know that someone else can see him for what he is, or at least see through the facade.

Something about Taylor Swift makes me very uncomfortable. I know next to nothing about her other than she's very popular and a good business woman. I neither like nor dislike her, I just feel weird about her.

This happened to me and my daughter. We went shopping and then wanted something to eat. There was this fish-n-chips place which seemed all right, we went in and then something happened. I can't explain it really, it seemed like I had hit thick evil fog or something and everything in me screamed "get out". It happened in seconds, I looked at my daughter, and it was absolutely clear she felt the same. We ran out and away, and on the next street corner we looked at each other and asked "what was that?" No explanation at all, but we felt something very bad and evil at the same time and equally strongly.
Still don't know what it was but it was very very frightening.

But don't forget, those two have had a lot of Botox. That really doesn't help them.

I feel the same about Jimmy Carr, though. There's something about him that is really creepy. I know it sounds awful but I always feel he's mimicking being normal.

Sometimes dogs know. But also, dogs are good at picking up on their owners' feelings, so maybe the dog was acting in response to its owner's terror.

Yes. I arrived at a yoga retreat and met the owners, husband and wife.

I got an overwhelmingly negative feeling from the man and vividly remember seeing a sort of grey and gloomy aura around him - and I'm not an 'aura' person. Anyway he assaulted me during that trip.

Those earlier mentioned, Jimmy Carr, Ricky Jervais, Jacob Rees Mogg - Yep, agreed, and I'd add Boris J, all have the air of men who outwardly very jovial, but you wouldn't want to cross. Rees Mogg I think is slightly different though - not jovial, and more just arrogant.

There was a mechanic I knew through a club my children went to, always friendly but I always felt uncomfortable with him. He asked my daughter round to play with his foster daughter a few times, I always made excuses, she never wanted to go either. Several years later he got imprisoned for abusing his foster daughter.

I was completely sucked in, though, by an in-law who seemed lovely but abused my relative. That was a huge shock.

There've been a few men over the years I've worked with who I always felt uncomfortable around. Not yet seen any of them on the news, though.

Slightly off topic but to do with dog's instincts:
Some years ago I knew a woman who walked her two dogs in a huge semi -wild park. One dog was a lurcher cross and the other a Doberman. She would let them off at the beginning of the path, they would race off into the far distance playing with each other then would reappear when she had pootled along to the end of the path, she usually lost sight of them till that point.
One day a man appeared ahead of her on the path, facing her, dressed in dark clothing with his hood up, standing stock still, blocking the path. No way to get around him. There had been some reports of someone acting suspiciously in the park and my friend really feared for her safety as there was no-one around.
Suddenly her Doberman appeared out of nowhere, ran snarling up to this man and went to bite his groin, (she thinks the dog got his clothing only) and the man legged it.
She hadn't called for the dog or made any sounds, neither had the man, so it's not like the dog heard something and responded.
She did report what had happened but was advised the bloke was unlikely to make a complaint.
Dogs rule!