People you had a sixth sense about and were right

[HarryPotterISreal]

I’ve just been reading one of the spooky threads here and a poster talked about someone she got a bad feeling about and some months later was arrested for abuse or something. When someone is arrested who is a ‘pillar of the community’ someone always says ‘I never liked him, I could always tell’.

Do you have a story where you genuinely knew someone was bad news, though everyone else thought they were wonderful? How could you tell and did others eventually see their true colours?

@Hofty I get the same too. I had to be quite independent from a young age, look after younger siblings, and then travelled the world on my own aged 19/20.

I think it really homed my instincts. Even now I trust me feelings if I feel on edge, I’ll move railcarriages, cross the street, be wary of friends. I pick up on any threats.

I once took a very strong, instant dislike to a new ‘acquaintance’ of my boyfriend. I told him never to bring him to our house again. I’ve never said that before or since. A few months later he was convicted of manslaughter, a very violent man.

And yet I’ve turned a blind eye to milder warnings in my boyfriends! Two have been borderline emotionally abusive, and all our friends thought they were lovely too. My last one cheated on me for months by sexting other women - I had a strong feeling that he was distant but I never thought he’d been cheating, he was the archetypal good sweet guy. That was a huge shock!

As an aspie, I've learned to construct the world's largest (it sometimes feels!) database of human behaviour in my head, so I can check people's actions against the prior experience of a lifetime and make a quickly calculated decison about how to respond. The older I get, the more comprehensive the dataset and the swifter the calculation - too swift to notice but based on experience rather than anything more woo. I was pretty naive as a youngster, which backs up this idea to some extent. I'd be interested in whether any other aspies relate to that as an idea.

I 100% relate to every word. My database is still incomplete at present, and I wouldn't trust myself to identify sex offenders, for example. However I can automatically recognise certain types of people who are unpleasant to have in one's life much faster than my more competent NT friends do, simply because I've encountered similar people before.

I met a guy in a bar the other weekend and we talked for ages but I just felt more and more uneasy around him. I can’t put my finger on it but it was almost like he knew exactly how to get you to like him, how to have things in common etc. Talked to my friend the next day and she got the exact same feeling and found him creepy. I got the feeling he takes advantage of people psychologically

Where we lived once, there were 3 milk bars in the local shops. I chose to support the middle one as he seemed to have the least custom. One night, one milk bar burnt down and unfortunately a young boy perished as he could not escape through the window. The next time I bought milk I came home and told my husband that my instinct was telling me that this particular owner was involved but husband told me I was nuts.

18 months later, evidence turned up and he was charged. He only meant to get rid of his competitor's business, not kill anyone. This sad tragedy has stayed with me for 30 years.

Jimmy Saville always scared me as a kid- hated seeing him on TV.

I recently went to a family gathering. The husband of a relative was there- he is usually working. At home I mentioned him leaving early. DD1 (10) said she found him creepy...weird as do I. Mentioned my DD comments to DH later and he finds him creepy.
So no leaving our kids near him as 3/4 of our family find him too creepy

I always had a weird feeling about Bruce Willis and thought it was odd that nobody ever seemed to interact with him. Then it turned out he is a ghost and I felt totally vindicated.

Alessandro was he by any chance a music teacher? Made kids stand on tip toes with their nose in a chalk circle on the wall?

DP DS and DD2 can't feel bad people any more than anyone else but they can always tell when some one is in trouble somehow. I think it must be biological as DS and DD2 are both biologically DP's where as DD1 is biologically mine.
When I first met DP it was because she had stopped me when walking home at night, scared the living sh*t out of me but when she told me she knew something was wrong I just burst out crying and told her I had just been fired and there was no way i could pay rent next month. Being the future love of my life (though neither of us knew it at the time) she listened and held me till I was done crying and helped me fix the situation.
She's done it to other people to (though luckily she doesn't always fall in love with them), I wont even notice them until dp is dragging me at speed towards them. DP once stopped someone jumping of a bridge that they weren't even stood on yet, multiple times she's spoken to people who are considering ending their marriage.
Most of the time she can help but sometimes she can't, a young girl in an abusive relationship once told her all about her boyfriend and seemed to gain such perspective on the relationship while talking but when dp suggested she seek help or let us help her she stormed off stating he was bad sometimes but she loved him.
When ds first showed this skill we were on a train me DDad dd1 and ds, dd1 was 1 ds was 5, I was cooing and playing with dd1 when ds slapped my thigh. I turned to reprimand him (he had recently shown jealousy to dd1) but he wasn't paying attention, he let me finish before pointing at a little girl sat with a man and saying "she needs help" she didn't seem distressed at all but I had assumed that ds had somehow spoken to her across the carriage, I gave dd1 to DDad and walked over to the girl with ds, I asked "did you ask for help" to which the man grabbed her arm and said "no she didn't." The girl burst out crying, the man let her go and ran. It turned out the girl had gotten separated from her mother in the hustle of getting on the train and the man had found her and it seems decided take her, she managed to get home safe and I'm still friends with her mother.
DD2 had managed to stop multiple school friends who no one even suspected of being depressed from committing suicide by spotting that they needed help days before they had planned to do it.
There are lots of examples and I've never known them to be wrong, the only trouble is that as with the ds's first case they don't see the bad person and just zero in on the person in trouble, neither ds or I had any idea what the man looked like (luckily DDad did).
I find it fascinating that they not only spot people in trouble but can also convince them to talk about the trouble (which tends to help ease the pain).

One of my good friends is married to a guy that everyone thinks is lovely. I disliked him instantly, so did my husband actually. My other friends think he's a great guy.
I was not surprised to find out recently that he's controlling and financially abusive. I really, really can't stand him.

I had a similar type of experience many years ago. I was dropped off at a large central London station at around 8pm in the evening and needed to get across London. I was young and not at all street smart in London at that time. I needed to use the toilets and there were stairs down into the ladies toilets. I started to go down the stairs and something told me too look round. I did and a group of around four rough looking men in their twenties were following me down the stairs (that only led to the ladies toilets).

I would typically not have said boo to a goose back then. But without even thinking I turned round, faced them front on and said loudly 'where are you going? this is the Ladies toilets'. They sort of smirked and went back up the stairs and away. I stood their shaking, waited until they left and went back up the stairs myself (I was too scared to use the toilets). The toilets were very quiet and I dread to think what could have happened.

It is an experience that has stayed with me. I totally believe our sub-conscious mind picks up on danger signals a lot earlier that our conscious mind does and compels us to act.

I have read the Gift of Fear book and would say should be compulsory reading for girls of secondary school age. Woman can be so conditioned to 'be nice' and 'helpful' - we need to be reminded that we have primal fears for a reason and should never ignore them.

Again, not quite the kind of thing you’re talking about, but - well-known tv personality of the past 20-odd years; repeatedly charged with sexual offences but exonerated every time; one high-profile accuser vilified for her part in his ‘ordeal’: years before it all came out, watching tv with a male housemate - Mr X came on. MH said something to the effect of - “Urgh; can’t stand that bloke.” When asked why, he said that X had appeared in panto in his home town, and was notorious for going to bars with his ‘entourage’ (pretty much just a driver/porter/wingman), ascertaining that the girls were over 16 (but preferring them younger than twenty) and getting them into his hotel room. Was particularly persistent with my MH’s then-girlfriend, who repeatedly refused, and got a lot of inducements - and then a lot of verbal. It was later circulated that a couple of the girls who did go over the course of the panto’s run, were at the very least humiliated and traumatised by his peccadilloes, and may well actually have been assaulted. The town essentially closed ranks and he wasn’t asked back.

Quite a few, but quite a few where I was wrong as well.

A couple who went to my gym. She was lovely but even though he was friendly enough, there was something odd about him that made me slightly uneasy. I eventually moved to a different area and heard they'd moved out of London and had a baby.

Fast forward a few years and he's in the papers as he's been charged with installing cameras in the ladies' at his work and having indecent images of children. But the judge let him off without a prison sentence as he was apparently not a threat to society and prison would've been detrimental to him 🙄

I don't know what happened after that, but his wife now uses her maiden name so I assume they're divorced. I feel so sorry for her and their daughter.

girlandboy

Some of the reporters felt he was 'off' when talking to him. Whether that is sixth sense or experience? Who knows.

When I was about 14 I was on holiday in France with my parents. We were staying at a hotel owned and ran by an English family, I took an instant dislike to the mother.

My parents loved the place and went back a couple of times. They believed they had made friends.

The last time they went they had a trip to the bank to get some cash and handed the money over and then realised they were missing some money.

The son of the family went back to the bank to act as interpreter, it turned out the 'rolls' of francs now had 2000 francs not 1000 so my parents had handed over double the cost of the hotel.

My parents and son went back to explain, mother of the family denied they had over paid and ended up having a heated argument with my parents and her own son. She eventually handed over the money.

He has indecent images of children and got let off?

For me, Savile represents the complexity of the whole situation. I hated him and found him creepy as a child. But in my case I don't think I'd picked up that he was dangerous, I just found the whole persona offensive - all the clothes and the hairstyle and the mannerisms. If you'd asked me as an adult (prior to the revelations) I'd have dismissed my feelings as almost some sort of snobbery. Just didn't like the fake, way over the top "entertainer" persona he chose to project. Of course, this (in retrospect) was part of his deliberately chosen camouflage: pick a public image so over the top that any feelings of disquiet could be blamed on the over-the-top image rather than spidey senses about the man underneath.

Despite my earlier comment about the two predators I completely missed, I do listen to my spidey senses (after a near-miss aged 19, when I got lured back to the college room of a very unpleasant man, and had great difficulty talking myself out of a situation - I instinctively knew he was dodgy, and consciously ignored those instincts because I was young and naive and had been brought up to "give people the benefit of the doubt" and "don't make snap judgements.")

What I'd be interested in is the "false alarm rate" - how often do we get groundless feelings of discomfort about someone (and how does that tie in with prejudices we may have, whether conscious or unconscious)? Because it is this constant balancing act. I feel like I want to listen to my instincts (especially after the 19 year old me's incident), but at the same time I don't want to be in a position where I'm making decisions about someone's future (e.g. offering/withholding a job) based on that kind of gut instinct. I guess for me I'd listen to those instincts in the "private sphere" (dating, deciding who to have as a lodger in my own home, that sort of situation), but try to suppress them in the "public sphere" (job offers, that sort of thing). Though even in the public sphere, the spidey sense might prompt me to do a bit more digging on a candidate.

Oh bettedavis how horrible for you. Always trust those gut feelings and teach your children to trust theirs to and avoid being alone with people who make them feel that way.

@SimonBridges The judge felt that he "wouldn't receive the support he needed" in jail, so gave him a supervision order and ordered him to attend a sex offenders rehab course.

I was curious as to what became of him so I just looked him up on LinkedIn and there he is, with a fairly senior job in a different industry.

I do worry that when we have these ‘bad gut feelings’ we dismiss them or ignore them as we don’t want to be rude (like a previous poster said especially women as we are meant to be ‘nice’).

When I was a school governor I was frequently involved in recruiting staff. There was one prospective teacher who gave me and the Deputy HT the creeps although the Head thought there was nothing wrong with him and would have employed him if we had not persuaded her to choose another candidate. A year later the creep was convicted of being a paedophile.

My dad had good gut instincts. He had Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris (whose show we saw once on holiday when I was a child), absolutely nailed and I recall when Holly and Jessica went missing and Ian Huntley was interviewed on TV, my dad said 'There is something wrong with him. I think he did it'.
He managed a factory and when a neighbour asked if there was any possibility of a job for his son-in-law, my dad said no. He told my mum afterwards he had a bad feeling about the SIL and thought he was a 'wrong 'un' . He turned out to be very dishonest and ended up in jail (the SIL not my dad )

But I don't think any of it is sixth sense, it is just that some people are very astute at reading the signals we all give off.

Weedsnseeds1 no he wasn’t. After I posted I googled him. He died in 2007 so I suppose I could name him, but I won’t. He won national notoriety by getting boys through A level in his subject at age 16 instead of 18. He also ran a dance band and did local charity work. On the surface, all the signs of a pillar of the comm7mity were there, but underneath I think was something more sinister.

One of his means of inflicting pain was to hold the back of your head with one hand and slowly rub the palm of his other hand over the tip of your nose in a circular motion, gradually increasing the pressure. He never did it to me, but I watched boys with tears streaming down their cheeks as he explained to them the error of their ways. Another was to stand you with your back against an upright girder, holding you by your hair and gently bang the back of your head against the girder in time with each word of the admonishment he was giving. “You [dull thud] don’t [dull thud] talk [dull thud] in [dull thud] assembly [dull thud] right? [dull thud]”. “Yes, Sir” “RIGHT??!! [dull thud]”. “Yes, Sir”. It makes me so angry just remembering it.

*community

SIL asked if she could invite a friend and the friend's boyfriend to our party, it turned out he was at Uni with DH. After the party DH says he thinks we should stay in contact etc. I said over my dead body, there was something about him I didn't like. I got all the 'that's ridiculous, you only met him for about 30 seconds, you can't possible make a decision about him!'
Turns out, he was married, got the friend pregnant and dumped her, telling her never to contact him again.