Gut instinct/ bad vibes have you been right?

[Latenightthoughts1]

Am I reasonable to say always trust your gut instinct about a person or situation. I always had a bad “vibe” off my SIL, could not explain it. She acted ‘pleasant’ enough but I always got these passive aggressive vibes off her, that something was ‘off’. She always left me feeling extremely uncomfortable, questioning things and feeling on edge and I could never quite put my finger on it. Recently she has finally shown her true colours in the most vile and disgusting ways with her words and actions. I am really greatful that she has let the ‘mask drop’ but equally angry with myself that i did not distance myself sooner and felt that ‘bad vibes’ alone was not reason enough to do so. Anyone else have any similar stories?

MaggieBsBoat

isn’t it called ‘the gift of fear’?

Doesn’t your conscious connect to your ‘gut’ though? Its the reason why mental health and digestive issues go hand in hand, your conscious is sending signals to you gut that something is not right and to be alert.

Hmm not always - to me they are different.
The ominous kind of guy instinct is something you feel physically, hence the name. That kind is in my experience never ever wrong.

Thanks to an aggressive father, I can spot a bloke with anger issues a mile off. Never have I ever been wrong.

I think you’re confusing ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ or ‘subconscious’ here. My point is only that ‘gut reactions’ aren’t solely to do with danger. They might make themselves felt more strongly if you were registering someone as a potential threat, but they could equally be registering someone as trustworthy and a non-threat.

And of course these things are fallible and culture-specific. One culture’s appropriate personal space is ‘standing way too close in a threatening or overly/intimate manner’ in another.

Becky Chambers’ cosy sci-fi novels are quite fun on this as they’re basically about different species figuring one another out. One species has a bad reputation for piracy and violence and one of them who is very attuned to cultural norms, is excellent at adjusting her body language to the norms of whoever she’s talking to so that she appears relaxed and trustworthy. Another species has no facial expressions but an excellent sense of smell means they can determine when one of their own or another species is angry/upset/sexually attracted etc via pheromones.

I'm a gut instinct person at times

But please do remember that neurodiverse folks, and those with social anxiety or trauma sometimes give off all sorts of anxious cues or cues that are seemingly 'different' of 'off' to NT person. It's really hard for some people to second guess what NT propelled are looking for in a conversation and this also causes anxiety and miscuing.

My point is that these are not dangerous people they just interact in a way that might seem different or be perceived as threatening when actually the opposite is true.

I used to have a really sweet dog, who just loved everyone. I'd only ever heard her bark a handful of times (and that was at various wild animals), and she wAS a terrier too! So I was really shocked when a neighbour a few doors down brought me a letter that had been delivered to him by mistake, and she went completely crazy! He was later arrested for rape and various other offences, mainly burglary I think.

I don't think I was in any danger from him on that day, but she knew he was a wrong'un somehow.

I've had something similar
A few years ago,I we where looking after a friends dog
He's a sap-ive seen him dressed in a bonnet and a blanket while being pushed around in his pram (I have the photos and often jokingly threaten to blackmail him with them)
Anyway,this day I had a really bad back and could hardly walk,so took him for a really slow walk to our local church graveyard (close to a main road,but set back and very quiet-you rarely see anyone else,but it does back onto a golf course)
I was just looking round to find somewhere to sit/take his lead off (he likes to have a sniff but close to his carer),when he went mental
Spit,teeth,hackles up/ears back,snarling-the lot
I've never seen him like that before-like I say,he's a sappy twat and I struggled to hold onto him
A bloke ran from the path we'd just walked up and ran off
Turns out he'd been seen flashing at random women and attacked one woman just before he saw me

My dds dog adored everyone (small breed)
He was that dog that would follow you to the ends of the earth just for a scratch behind his ears
He hated our neighbour-hed run off yelping if we saw him,but he was fine with the neighbours wife and kids
Turns out the neighbour was belting his wife daily and was done for fraud at his workplace
He also hates my mother and brother-both evil narcissists who have tried to destroy many people
I told dd that if the dog hated someone,she did too

He's never been wrong yet

This is very true, I still think there is a difference, I converse with a number of neurodiverse folk in my work who have never given me a bad ‘vibe’ or that something is ‘off’ mainly because these have been good people l, with good hearts and good souls :)

Yes. A friend’s partner. Really disliked him from the moment I met him.

he ended up battering her senseless

Thats awful 😞

Completely agree.

People also use "gut instinct" to disguise prejudice (particularly race and class) a lot of the time so I take all of this talk with a huge pinch of salt.

The most dangerous person I've ever met was an absolute charmer. I didn't like him but that's not because I sensed anything with my magic instincts, it's because of my own prejudice against posh private school boys who talk down to me. And a lot of people around him absolutely loved him so obviously their gut instinct was absent or faulty.

I feel I have a very weak instinct and am pure logic. I don't know if it's a good or bad trait. I always like people until i have been given good cause to dislike them. It makes me a little naive I know. While a gut feeling would help sometimes, I find people who rely on it especially for first impressions can be quite suspicious and distrustful. Once in a while they are proved right and are very proud of themselves and I feel foolish. But then I think of the (100s) of examples when I benefited from a positive interaction with someone because I was warm and open. The more guarded hostile person attracts more guarded or hostile interactions.

When I was a kid, there was a joke shop not far from my house. All the kids went there quite regularly as the guy who owned it told joke, gave prank ideas and often freebies etc.

For a reason I couldn't explain, I felt really uncomfortable in the shop and didn't want to be near him at all. My parents put it down to the "scary masks in the window that you don't like".

Years later I checked the news one day to see he'd been arrested on account of abuse of several children over the years and the police found mountains of evidence on his laptop and hidden in his house.
He's still in prison now, I think.

Hmmm im not sure about this, in your experience yes perhaps your own prejudice did get in the way. With regards to my SIL we are both from similar backgrounds in class/ culture / values / morals etc and I mix with similar people to her everyday who I get no feeling of uneasiness with.

I've had the heebie jeebies about several men I've met socially I've the years, and at least three of them have subsequently turned out to be predators (two actually prosecuted - one I found out about via the grapevine, but doesn't seem to have attracted formal police intervention, more's the pity). While there's been several times I've had bad vibes from people without any subsequent proof that the bad vibes were justified, I definitely definitely listen to my gut on these things.

Also once as a joke in a group of friends, we all did one of those online 'psychopath tests' and one guy scored highly. We all laughed it off at the time (and I should note that he did not give me the heebie jeebies) but subsequent events made me realise that should actually have been a major red flag and if he wasn't a full blown psychopath he certainly had more tendencies in that direction than I would ever want for someone in my life.

This is also very true. However I am always warm and open despite strange vibes- biggest reason I feel a fool for not listening to gut instinct.

I know. I disliked him so intensely that I told a mutual friend about it. She was surprised as she didn’t see it and also the ferociousness with which I disliked him was really unusual.

i don’t want to say too much on here but it all turned out to be justified and my friend could not believe that I hadn’t said anything to her. You can’t though can you? It would have potentially ruined the friendship

I find this so interesting and do genuinely believe in gut instinct and listening to that voice that warns you something is off.

I do think some bad people do not give off any dodgy vibe through. My example being a priest I met who was very close to my ex'a family. I met him at loads of family events and he performed weddings/ christenings etc and always seemed lovely. I thought he was great. He's in prison now for child sex offenses. Clearly an excellent masker.