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.

When I was very young at nursery, so <4, I remember being petrified of the assistant caretaker.

I still remember the panic I would feel in my belly whenever he came into the nursery to empty the bins. He always carried a black sack, which I hated. My memory has wiped so many of my memories but I remember his name 35 years later - Steve.

The lovely old caretaker on the other hand I really liked and still remember fondly and remember his name.

Me and a friend (both age 12) were hanging around and were approached by a vaguely familiar older man who we'd seen around but didn't know personally.

He latched onto us and wouldn't go away. I got the worst vibe from him that he meant us harm. My friend felt the same and was gesturing to me for us to leg it.

Scared, we did a little speed walk into a housing estate then ran as fast as we could through it.

Once through the other side we spotted a local elderly lady standing just outside her door, she was the only person around so we ran to her and told her we were being followed.

I looked back and saw the man coming to a stop from running through the estate, he'd ran after us.

The lady told us to stand with her and after a minute or so he left.

I knew, even at such a young age, our intuition was spot on and he was going to do something to us.

No idea what became of him but I would put money on him having done the same to others.

One of the only really good posts in this thread.

All the posters who claim to have been creeped out by someone who turned out to be... wait for it... Jimmy Saville! They just make me think "cool story bro".

So many people from marginalised communities, or people who just didn't conform to the norm in harmless ways, have been the victims of people "just following their instinct" or "trusting their gut". Over the years many white people's "instinct" told them Black men were criminals, muggers and rapists. The woman who got Emmett Till lynched probably had an "instinct" about him.

Be as cautious as you want to be but don't for a second believe - or try to make me believe - that your precious gut instinct is all that.

I wonder if I might be missing some instinct. Not to dismiss any of these experiences but I can't say it has ever happened to me. I watched Jimmy Saville from when I was very young and was desperate to get on the programme. I was shocked when all the revelations came out - never had a clue. As for those saying the kids looked scared, did they really? I don't remember that at all.

As a young mum, me and DH were very friendly with our local vicar, who was married with a couple of little boys. We went to (daytime) parties at his house, socialised with him and his wife. Only a few years later he was arrested for offences against children and I never had an inkling he was anything other than what he purported to be.

He'd been recommended to us by the priest where I grew up as they'd gone to college together. At the old church there was a huge congregation of teens and we all looked up to the priest as our mentor. No prizes for guessing what came out about 4 years after the first one was arrested. I didn't believe it. It was only that a mutual friend had been one of the victims that I was convinced it was true.

If it was that easy to identify wrong-uns then nobody would ever fall victim to them, surely?

You feel how you feel and trusting your instincts is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

I ignored my instincts about someone once. Everyone else liked him. He was the life and soul of the party and a "really nice guy". He raped me.

Since that day I trust my instinct on people. I've no idea if I was right or wrong in each occasions as they weren't famous people and they've never become infamous serial killers or the likes, but I kept myself safe and feeling ok and that's all that matters.

I believe you.

Mine wasn't him. It was a nursery with my child 😭

He doesn't remember, he's a father now, but it still makes me ill. I was physically sick when the police came round. That's never happened before or since.

And yes, I couldn't stand the woman, she was local too and kept calling herself auntie to my son - no! No. Never!

I can't write any more.

We definitely have a gut instinct.

But you wouldn’t get any type of feeling around proper dangerous individuals like psychopaths or serial killers, as it’s their charm, normal personality and how they blend in which is what makes them so dangerous.

A man aged around 25ish used to come into a shop where i once worked for cigs and lottery.
when i would see him in the queue my heart would sink, he gave me the creeps and i could barely look at him.

He hadn’t said or done anything apart from ask for his lottery etc but he actually scared me, made me feel afraid for everyone in his life!!
No reason i could pinpoint at all, no evidence to back up my story but i know the effect just being in his presence had on me.

Have definitely had vibes about people - others have loved them but I wasn't so sure and they turned out to be horrible.
But this proper gut level instinct that is visceral, and almost like a voice outside myself- I have had twice- once about 15 years ago about a pupil I taught and once more recently about a situation I found myself in. Both were totally different to the vibes thing. Such a strong and physical reaction (hair on neck, heart pounding fear , relief when they leave the room etc) The pupil I taught did terrible things not long after my experience and a number of staff had similar experiences before they did those things. A number of us were scared and very worried about home addresses being available etc.

Walked past a guy last week who gave me the creeps so much that I turned to check he was still walking in the opposite direction. He looked dead behind the eyes but could have just been unwell, poor chap!

It was something like .... Say you were alone, waiting for the lift in a quiet building, and the lift stopped with a man on his own in there already. Even if he made you feel uneasy, your social conditioning would mean that you'd still get in. If, however, you had a dog with you and the dog growled at the bloke, you'd trust the dog's instinct and you wouldn't get in. So we'd trust an animal's instinct but we'd override our own.

Doesn't he also say that dogs don't have the ability to recognise dodgy people so if they growl at someone it's because they recognise and respond to signals we're giving off?

I can never understand the people who deny we have instinct. All animals do.

It depends how you interpret it.

I understand it to mean a woman shouldn't stay with a violent man hoping his violence was a one off or that he will change and if she does stay a violent man will think it means that whatever he did was not that bad.

I think we should make it clear to young women that violent men rarely, if ever, change and that they should leave as soon as they are able to.

None of that means a woman was asking for or deserved the violence perpetrated against her, EVER.

There were rumours abound about Jimmy Savile long before he died. And he was fucking weird to anyone who had eyes.

I don't think it's a sixth sense that you thought he was what he was rumoured to be when you met him.

I think that really badly worded line which definitely has not aged well - does not sum up the huge benefit that book had for allowing women to overcome socialisation and be confident with boundaries.
It wouldnt be fair to disregard The Gift of Fear on the basis of whataboutery.

I don't think it is a sixth sense or anything supernatural. I think it is a number of things- mostly sub conscious and picking up on micro expressions as well

Hmm, could be @FOJN , so more like we use the dog to give us "permission" (not the right word really, but it'll do) to trust our own instincts.

I think people respond to body language and facial expressions - but these are on a micro scale so we aren't necessarily aware we're doing it.

I think we might also be able to detect hormones and pheromones given off - for example if someone is stressed.

I don't think it's a sixth sense, just use of some of the usual five.

Always trust my instincts. They never fail

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

Yes, it all a bit woo.
Is it possible you just don’t like this person?

OP, trust that inner warning feeling.
It's there for a reason, to help protect us from harm.
Never ''Override'' it or think you are being silly for listening to it.

A dog {Breed edited out } at dog show absolutely refused to sit near a particular man {despite her owner and him being being sat in close proximity.
The dog is so say a good reader of people.
She did not like him one bit.

Bloke murdered his wife in lockdown. Pleaded ''Mental illness'' that get out of jail {almost} free card.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/apr/30/wales-anthony-williams-who-killed-wife-will-not-have-five-year-sentence-increased

This. But on MN 'gut instinct' is pretty much taken as proof positive of objective fact, so you're unlikely to have much success convincing most people here to do more than trust their every passing emotion
No wonder con artists thrive.

Really. And you can prove this negative how?

We had a customer who gave me the absolute chills. I'd find a male colleague to deal with him. He was finally arrested for the murder of a young girl in the worst way. The police believed that he had murdered others but mum always alibied him as did another family member. What they found at his home was nauseating. His father/ex husband gave him up .

Trust your instincts.

On a night shift last night. Patient was having a walk around the ward stretching his legs. Absolutely nothing wrong with this and to be encouraged, no one wants a dvt.

He'd done absolutely nothing wrong and given no indication that he might be dangerous but I got the most intense bad vibes from him I've felt for a very long time.

Something in me was just like - be afraid of this man, he is dangerous.

Come 2am this morning, police were on the ward because he'd assaulted three members of staff and tried to blow up the hospital by lighting the oxygen on fire with his lighter

All because we couldn't take him outside for a cigarette