To get the chills from someone I barely know at all?

[bloopingbleeping]

Had my hackles rise and a strong feeling someone I hardly know is not someone to be trusted.

(I do experience anxiety to some degree already, but it’s more of a “overthink and worry” type, not being physically cold and shaky like this). I don’t believe this person is a danger to my physical safety, but I’ve hardly ever felt this unsafe even around people I know I couldn't trust.

Please tell me about times your intuition reacted to someone and whether you were wrong or right. Preferably more mundane, everyday relationships, not the rare cases of someone encountering a serial killer.

Yes, certainly. Trust your instincts, they’ve developed over millions of years for your survival!

I get this all the time but my intuition levels are generally pretty high. I experienced it with someone famous who I liked until i actually him. I learned on here that he'd been linked with paedophile activities...which was exactly the vibes I was getting from him.

You are going to get a load of posts telling you about how they’d felt chills, and identified a serial killer following a 10 second meeting. Some will even insist they knew a person was a wrong’un, even though there’s no evidence to back this at all.

Before getting tied up with all these, just look up confirmation bias.

I've only ever met one person who made the hairs raise on the back of my neck and that told me that I needed to get away from them. Thing is they were extremely high profile and it eventually came out that they were a wrong'un. I know I'm not going to be believed but it was Jimmy Savile. Trust your instincts.

Read "The Gift of Fear".

I once had a really odd feeling I was being followed but didn’t actually see anyone specific following me (during the day in a busy area so not particularly scary, was just odd). About an hour later some (much older than me) guy came and asked if I’d go for a drink with him. I said no. He continued to follow me around for ages pestering me to go for a drink with him despite multiple hard NO’s and leave me the fuck alones.

we can certainly pick up on that something isn’t right and that is their behaviour we can’t necessarily detect this by looking / talking to them but our brain has and sent messages to our body that we are in possible danger

yes I have had this some people project their paranoia, fear, anger just by seeming to be standing there (it’s useful to acknowledge this in some areas of work) or there is a slight change that is being picked up on but we don’t know what

when I was a child I simply didn’t like the man up the road who was friendly with everyone. If his wife was there I would go into there house if she wasn’t I would feel panicky and want to run home (they had lots of animals and both in their 70’s our parents were happy for us to pop in) yes he was grooming and had abused a few girls this came out when his daughter accused him of sexually abusing her

A guy who was questioning me about my allotment, everything about him made my flesh crawl. Never saw him again.

A friend who is pretty ‘hard’ at work refused to deal with a client. She had one meeting off site with him. Done for rape 2 years later.

I've had this a few times. Remember one guy who just terrified me. Don't know why. Just have to assume my body was telling me to get away for good reason.

I've had this, a few years ago on a beach. I could not wait to away from them, instincts are there to be trusted I think.

I had a few dates with this guy, he was handsome, lovely, charming. He was ticking all the right boxes.

The only way I can describe it, is a bit like people talk about the ick on here, but there was something more, I didnt like him touching me. After the 3rd date, I ended it, again seemed lovely about it.

I think it was a few months later I bumped into a friend and this guy came up, turns out his ex wife/partner had him arrested for multiple counts of physical abuse.

There is a possibility I had heard some sort of rumour about this and so my brain was letting me know, but certainly at the time I would have said I had never heard of him.

Yea, elderly male neighbour when I was living in another apartment.

We used to have a little hello, how are you.

He wanted to show me something in his flat and I humoured him.

When inside he closed the door and went to get whatever it was.

Hair went up on my neck and I felt a bit almost light headed with fear.

Got out of there sharpish and kept it very brief from then on, till I left.

It was like he had communicated a malevolent thought directly to me.

Have definitely had brief moments of a little unease, but living abroad as a young single professional woman I would have been very aware of my personal safety.

Nothing compares to that feeling 35+ years ago.

I tell all of my children to listen to their gut always.

It's there to prioritise and protect you.

As a child he gave me the creeps. Yes I never met him, but I never understood why my friends loved his programme. My best friend wrote to him, asking if he could fix it for us to meet Danny la rue. I prayed that would not happen.

It’s happened to me a few times, the worst time it was confirmed later. It was through a charity and he was a service user, he had been in high security mental institutions and had a history of extreme violence which I didn’t know at the time. All the service users had MH issues and others had been violent but this was next level. other service users were scared of him.

One of the oddest was my friend and I used to walk her little dog along the canal path every Saturday. Once a young man, late teens walked past us as it’s a canal path you are obviously always in quite close proximity. He looked perfectly pleasant and did not do anything wrong but I had the worse most gut wrenching fear. When he was well out of earshot both my friend and I looked at each other and both relayed how we had felt the same. He did nothing odd or offensive.

Had another joint experience like this when a friend and I were looking for a house share. Lovely house but one of the guys just made me and my friend feel really uneasy. Again he did nothing wrong nor had an odd countenance, it was a feeling shared after we left the viewing.

I don't know about "chills" but I never liked my stepdad's younger brother at all from when I was very young. He was always very loud and full himself, constantly showing off his martial arts skills to my brothers etc and he made my skin crawl. When I was a teenager he ended up in prison a few times for assault and then for rape.

Don't have anything to do with him that you can avoid and keep yourself safe. But also remember that we feel this sort of thing all the time, but only remember the times when it turns out to be true.

I remember being in my flat which was the top floor of a house. A guy had come to fix the TV. He did fix it and then he stood between me and the door and just stared at me. It seemed like it was for several minutes, but obviously it wasn't, but it felt far too long.

I was absolutely frozen and felt that I knew something really terrible, was going to happen. Then my boyfriend entered the flat and we had the door slam. The atmosphere changed completely just like after a storm and the guy acted completely normal with him.

It was absolutely terrifying and I know that if my boyfriend hadn't come in something bad would've happened. I think the TV guy thought I lived on my own.

Bloody hell. So his wife aiding and abetting?

The one that really sticks out for me was leaving work & heading into an alleyway that had fields & wooded area on one side & was having new housing built on the other side, it was a short cut I didn’t usually take but generally safe, there were always dog walkers about usually. As I was going into the alley a nice looking young man was walking out of it & I had such a feeling of revulsion & dread from making eye contact as we passed, he was perfectly pleasant looking, no reason for it. Assumed he was a student at nearby college by his age & satchel style bag. I kept walking feeling sick & cold, turned around & he was behind me with an iron bar in his hand, just smiling at me. I don’t know what possessed me but I screamed at him yeah come on then, puffed myself up as if I was actually going to fight the guy & legged it past him back out of the alley. I think some people you just know. Not always, I mean I’ve been surprised by some real wrong-uns that I genuinely had no clue after years of knowing them.

I mean you should definitely get out of a situation you don't feel comfortable in but I wouldn't trust your gut instinct to discern between a good/bad person.

We're pattern forming creatures and we often see and perceive things that aren't really there due to this.

So be guided by your gut but don't bet the house on it!

Only once - I met a bloke through OLD and first meeting was in a shopping centre. Meeting was fine, no issues. Arranged to meet in a pub local to me (he still didn't know my real name or address as this was over 20 years ago and I was still wary about the whole Internet thing).

I waited outside for him. Saw him drive past looking for the car park. He hadn't seen me but I got a very strong feeling that I should quickly go home and go nc.

I ignored the feeling and we started dating. He was a predator and did all the classic stuff of alienating me from friends and family etc. I was vulnerable at the time but kept my wits. Within 3 months I knew he was a wrong un but it took me another year to get him out of my life. In the end I changed my name and moved 400 miles away. This guy never hit me or anything but he was the worst person I've ever let close. Very scary man.

IMO we're probably pretty good at subconsciously picking up things that aren't quite "right" in someones demeanor.
But Im not sure this is always accurately "hes a threat" as opposed to "pretending not to be incredibly anxious" or "really depressed but wanting to seem 'normal'" or "eye contact difficult" or whatever.
So if you feel threatened then dont stay in that situation. Because maybe you're right, and it definitely isnt worth a risk. But really if it is your subconscious is reacting to tiny cues, then you,re quite likely to be wrong, too.

There was a serial killer in the 60s/70s that even went on a televised dating show. Apparently the girl who 'won' the date with him then refused to go as she got that strong intuition that something wasn't right with him.

Not chills as such but I used to live in quite a rough area, lots of 'proper' gangs of young men hanging about etc. Never bothered me, always just used to smile and say hello as I went past, never had a problem. Until one night I was walking home from the bus stop, saw 3 lads walking towards me, and I just knew from quite far away I was going to have an issue with them even though there was nothing obviously different to all the other times I'd walked past a group of lads at night.

And I did, they surrounded me, all talked at me at the same time and started trying to shepherd me towards a dark alleyway. I faced off to them, started shouting and swearing at them as loud as I could. They decided I was too much trouble I think and walked off eventually but I was so shaken about what could have happened if I had been too frightened to react.

And me. He visited my place of work in the 1980s. I didn’t want him anywhere near me