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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you to tell me if you’ve ever had a bad vibe from someone and been proven right?

78 replies

ethelfleda · 31/08/2018 20:56

Have you ever met someone and felt that something wasn’t right with them? That they give off a bad vibe or get your spidey senses tingling? But you can’t quite figure out why? And then been proven right?

I’m asking because I’ve had this with a new co-worker (and experienced it before and been proved right)

I’m just curious to see if any of you have a sixth sense about such people!

OP posts:
Cauliflowersqueeze · 31/08/2018 23:24

Parkhead that is horrific. I am so so sorry for your loss.

HemanOrSheRa · 31/08/2018 23:25

ParkheadParadise I don't know what to say SadFlowers.

londonrach · 31/08/2018 23:26

Yes. No idea if im right as i remove myself from the situation. The worse was my uni room mate. Her brother...i just couldnt be in the same room. My hair stood up on my neck and something screamed at me. I always made my excuses to not be around when he visited. I didnt share with her the next year on purpose so lost touch so no idea why everything in me told me to stay away. Its been useful in my work doimg home visits and have had a few ive avoided but nothing like my room mates brother. I believe listen to your gut though but why i felt physically ill in the same space as him...no idea. He looked a normal person.

RooDaisy · 31/08/2018 23:34

parkhead I'm so sorry x

EagleRay · 31/08/2018 23:36

Yes - family friend when I was a child.

Later became a serial killer

BarbarianMum · 31/08/2018 23:39

How does this help you? Isnt it just bias confirmation? Why not ask people if they've ever had a bad feeling about someone and been proven wrong.

KitchenDancefloor · 31/08/2018 23:42

You might also be interested in this recent thread

People you had a sixth sense about and were righthttp://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/3322290-People-you-had-a-sixth-sense-about-and-were-right

mooncuplanding · 31/08/2018 23:42

Yes!
I have it all going off about my ndn at the moment. I know he's a wrong un and suspect he's abusive to his wife. It's hard to know what to do without concrete evidence.

Overthehedge00 · 31/08/2018 23:57

yes, about 5 years ago a young couple moved into the house next to us. He was a good looking young lad, charming and had the most piercing blue eyes. Always smiling, saying hello and knocked round to introduce himself. His girlfriend, on the other hand, used to glare and give me dirty looks for no reason. She never spoke to me or my children in the whole time we lived there, even when we were both on our driveways. They were only 19/20 (good 10 years younger than me) so I just put it down to her age and maybe being shy.

Something screamed at me about him though and I used to be fascinated by him. He made the hairs on my neck stand up. He smiled constantly and just had the strangest air to him. Manic almost. It got so bad I Kept my children inside when he was outside etc. My DH thought i was mental.

One night they were arguing (just normal stuff, nothing major) but something was off about him and it niggled me, so i rang the police. Never ever done that on anyone before (so im not a busybody!) and they didnt even follow up on it. I didnt feel comfortable living there so we moved.

6 months later he stabbed her in the throat with open scissors in front of their 1 year old son. Claimed she fell on the scissors but later told the truth. The police rang me and asked me to do a witness statement as they found my phone call. It was read out in court and he got send down and the baby adopted out. Apparently it was a domestic violence situation and all her family were aware of it and had been begging her to leave for years.

ahouseofleaves · 01/09/2018 00:00

ParkheadParadise Horrendous. Got chills reading your post. I'm so very sorry for your loss.

AjasLipstick · 01/09/2018 00:10

My friend's friend. She was...let's say "odd". Not in a "might be autistic" way but in a single white female way.

I kept her at arm's length and could not see what my friend saw in her.

Later, they went into business together and the odd friend tried to ruin my friend. She was vicious and frightening once it all got out.

YourWinter · 01/09/2018 00:10

Yes, usually with my now AC's boyfriends and girlfriends. Only once did I do a complete U-turn and became really fond of a lovely girl who'd set alarm bells ringing for me at first (sadly DS had moved on by then).

And with co-workers, playground mafia, not to mention potential suitors. My first instinct is rarely misplaced.

ahouseofleaves · 01/09/2018 00:10

Overthehedge00 That's one of so many tragic cases where the reaction comes too late. How sad.

One of my teachers when I was 16. There was just this weird vibe, and we all thought he was odd. I tried to push the thought away, told myself I was being silly. But I skipped a lot of his classes and was freaked out the one time I had to be in a room alone with him to receive an update on the grade. I just wanted to get out of there, remember I kept looking at the door.

Years later, I heard he was fired. It was discovered that he had that kind of child images on his computer.

Now I try hard to listen to my intuition.

WyfOfBathe · 01/09/2018 00:28

Nothing as serious as a lot of the posts on this thread.

Very popular girl at my secondary school. Clever, pretty, sporty, confident. Students and staff all seemed to love her. My friends thought I must be jealous because I didn't like her. After a few years, it turned out she'd lied about her childhood and parents' jobs. Weird but harmless, most people forgave her.

She got a place at a very competitive private upper school (different country). An equally clever but fairly socially awkward girl got in too. She said that the unpopular girl had cheated in the admissions test, and her place was taken away. Everyone believed the articulate popular girl.

Years later, I met the popular girl again. She was laughing about how she had lied, so she wouldn't end up in classes with a "weirdo".

CommanderDaisy · 01/09/2018 00:57

yup.
Had a contract shearer working for us , who travelled around the region with a crew.
He made the hairs on my neck stand up, and had the same effect on our managers wife. Neither of us would let him in the house when he dropped in to see our husbands. We'd make him wait outside with screens doors locked.
Turned out he was responsible for a series of rapes in areas where he was working, he was arrested and sent to prison for a number of years.
Go with your instincts.

KaosReigns · 01/09/2018 07:50

My best friend hated me when we first met, still doesn't know why. We've been like family for going on 15 years now so shes had a long wait to figure out why.

I did ignore the intuition once when we were interviewing people while rehoming one of our dogs. In my defense I was heavily pregnant and they played on my sympathies. Fortunately quickly came to my senses and took him back, he's now with a lovely couple. Still kick myself for it though.

StripySocksAndDocs · 01/09/2018 08:02

Very much so when I was a child up to a young adult, less so now. Not sure why- possibly met fewer new people long term.

I was asked once how I'd know. (After someone universal adored, had been arrested for gbh. Everyone was shocked, I wasn't - never liked him.) I said it's his mouth and eyes. Though I can't tell you what it was about them!!

Idontbelieveinthemoon · 01/09/2018 08:14

Not me, but DS1. He was only quite young, around 5 or 6, but went for a playdate at a friends house. He'd known the friend and her DC since he was 2, but her new partner had recently moved in and DS1 met her for the first time. He came home and asked "is it ok not to like an adult?" which seemed an odd question, and I explained it was fine, that if anyone gave off an odd feeling to him to always let me know but that it was his body's way of keeping him safe. He explained that the new partner "gave me a funny feeling in my tummy" but didn't 'do' anything he could say upset him. He never went there again and we let the friendship dwindle.

Seven years on, the new partner is serving a lengthy sentence for child abuse over an extended period. DS1 has no idea but I always wonder at his comments that day - if he picked up something about her or it was just chance that he took a dislike to her.

Frouby · 01/09/2018 08:15

All the time. My DH has finally learned to listen to me.

We have a business and I can tell who is going to be a problem payer. The last time dh didn't listen it cost us 15k.

Finally he actually listens.

I don't know why I know. Most of the time I don't meet them, maybe the very odd phone conversation. Or email exchange. But I listen to recounts of conversations between them and dh, am very good at reading between the lines and can smell bullshit from 2 miles away.

I also pick up on it on a personal sense as well. Sometimes it takes a few meetings to identify why my senses are pinging. But I do know instantly if I like someone. A newish friend of mine shouldn't be my friend. She is the opposite of me in every way. But I liked her instantly and we are now pretty good friends after just a few months. She's a good egg.

Another long term friend of DHs I have never particularly liked. I know why now. Am pretty sure he screws around behind his wifes back, is arrogant, sexist and a complete knobber. Everyone else loves him and thinks he is a top bloke.

RosieLancs · 01/09/2018 08:38

Yes there's been several times I've felt like that and been proven right but the most memorable time was when I was in my late teens, we used to meet my then boyfriend's neighbour in the pub, a man called Allan Grimston, there was just something wrong with him, everyone else seemed to love him but something just screamed at me that he was bad.
Fast forward a couple of years, I'd moved to Tenerife and was reading the paper, there he was on the front page having just been convicted of the murder of 2 men and suspected of 20 more.
One of the men he'd murdered was a friend of mine who'd gone missing so I'd sat in the pub with him after he killed my friend, no wonder the spidey senses were going crazy.

Steelesauce · 01/09/2018 08:38

Not really, I'm a 'give everyone a chance' kind of person. I can spot a sex offender and personality disorder though as I've worked with both of them so have a pretty good 'radar' for it. My husband is amazing at it though, always been proved right. We're currently awaiting the truth to come out about a friends new husband...

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 01/09/2018 08:41

If my dogs dislike someone then I can't trust that person either.

sillyswimmer · 01/09/2018 09:24

This has happened many times with me. They're often loved by other people but something tells me they're not as nice as they make out. I must send out a 'don't fuck with me' vibe because they often end up wary around me. They normally prove me right at some point.

There's two people like this at the moment. One is an equivalent to me in the company. Everyone raves how good she is at her job but since I've been promoted to the same level as her I can see she uses smoke and mirrors to look like she's amazing, plus she manipulates her boss. She causes massive problems when she realised I was going to be working at the same level as her.

The other person is my friends DH. I've never liked him since they met but couldn't work out why. She confided in me that he's abusive.

I have been wrong a couple of times but on the whole I'm normally correct.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 01/09/2018 09:40

Only once. My late neighbour's priest visited often and had the deadest, shark-like eyes I've ever seen; he'd look you straight in the eye but there was just nothing there at all ... odd in anyone, never mind a priest

It was given out that he had cancer and had gone home to Ireland to die, except it turned out that what he's actually done was escape just ahead of a paedophilia charge

PatchworkElmer · 01/09/2018 11:20

Yep- long story short, met a woman at a social function, and my first thought was “she’s so fake, don’t trust a word she says”.

We ended up working together, I got to know her and we became very close.

She mercilessly screwed me over last year, and then bullied me in the workplace. It’s taken me a year to build up the emotional energy to find another job and hand in my notice.