Thanks.
Bad planning on her part, thankfully.
Seconded. That is a really well written book. De Becker knows his stuff.
And to answer the OP: the worst case was a new boyfriend of a girl that I had known for quite a while. Klaxons went off when she introduced us. I told her later that I had reservations about him and she got pissed at me. Short, whirlwind romance, quick marriage, and within three months, he was hitting her. When she finally told me and another friend about it, we…well, let’s just say we took some actions and the marriage was ended very quickly with no objection from the asshole in question.
A person who was trying to hire me (I’m an asshole for hire) did not appear to be off in any particular way, but I followed my spidey sense and made excuses to get him out of my office ASAP. A few months later he tried to kill another asshole for hire in my city, for which he eventually was convicted for attempted murder.
My tale is relatively tame compared to the responses I’ve read so far, and I’ve always looked back on it with a sense of humor.
Back in high school in the early '80’s I was at the core of a group of campus misfits in San Diego. I was casually introduced to a girl who was a friend of a friend of an outer circle acquaintance. I’ll call her Britney Spears* just to give you a handle to work with. Even as I was approaching the group (who were milling about at our usual hangout after school), I was getting an increasingly strong sensation, like when you stick your tongue on the terminals of a 9-volt battery except the zappy vibrations were running through my bones instead of my muscles. It wasn’t fear (I was already an overconfident martial artist by then) but it was really weird and even though I made a point of keeping one or two bodies between myself and Britney, the waves of freaky tingling just creeped me out until we all dispersed. Nobody else seemed to notice and all Britney did was sit on the bench and converse with everyone like a normal person. She never came around again so I thought nothing of it – until years later.
In the late '90’s I was doing grad school in Cincinnati, working as #2 in charge of one of the dorms. It was a habit of mine to finish up my homework late at night and then do a patrol# before going to bed. I’d start at the top floor in the common area, walk down one of the two staircases to the next floor down, walk across the common area to the other staircase, and proceed that way down a dozen floors. Naturally, if there was something unusual happening I’d stop to deal with it. On the ground floor, I’d take the elevator back up. As I was taking the stairs from level 7 (honors floor) to level 6 (science majors) I started feeling that creepy tingle that I had only felt once before. There was nobody on the 6th floor so I tried to ignore that freaky flag and just continued my patrol. But as I was descending from level 6 to level 5 (art majors) the sensation was getting stronger. I emerged from the stairway and turned the corner to see a girl sitting on one of the couches in the common area. She was doodling on a big sketch pad and minding her own business, but as I turned the corner she looked up at me and nodded. I could have sworn she was the spitting image of Britney, who had creeped me out over a decade earlier, and my mind was reeling because I knew the real Britney couldn’t look exactly the same after so many years and, even if she had been pregnant when I met her, her daughter wouldn’t have been old enough for high school yet (much less college). Besides, I was thousands of miles away from San Diego.
And I know I sounded terribly harsh – I even felt guilty as I was speaking, but I walked straight up to the girl and stood behind her couch and demanded, “What is your name?”
She blinked at me like she was confused and had no clue what she had done wrong, then transferred her pencil to her left hand and reached out with her right hand to introduce herself, “Britta Sparrow. Umm, pleased to meet you.”
And her voice and accent were exactly like the girl I had only met that one time in high school! My breath caught and I’m sure my face had one of those Holy $#|+! expressions when I finally choked out, “You have got to be kidding!”
Britta kept her hand extended and asked, still quite innocently, “Is something wrong?”
I had no way to explain what was going on inside me and just stood there staring at her hand for a moment. Finally I just turned toward the nearest elevator and angrily said, “Never mind!”
I imagined her holding her hand out for a few more seconds while frowning in confusion at me. The elevator door opened immediately and I just stepped inside the car and hit the top floor button, cutting my patrol short for the night. I didn’t even turn around until the elevator doors opened on my floor.
I never saw (or sensed) her again.
–G!
*Though she was in drama, not music classes.
#It wasn’t a required part of my job, but it became an exercise/safety check routine.
Thank you, everyone!
As an overconfident martial artist I’ve learned to suppress my instincts of fear and that’s probably not prudent for me in the long run.
I will learn to listen to my instincts again – and provide greater respect to my wife’s misgivings and concerns, as well.
I’ve met a couple of people over the years, but I can’t really remember them because when I meet someone like that, I immediately walk away.
Well, there was a guy who was a friend of a friend. Friend kept trying to get me to be friends with this guy and the vibes I got from him just didn’t work and I chose not to associate with the guy.
About a year later, guy shows up on the doorstep of other friends asking for money at Thanksgiving time. Says he gambled away his entire $800 paycheck and needs money to cover it so his fiance won’t know. Stupid thing was that the couple he approached was 8.5 months pregnant and preparing for near imminent birth. They refused him. He shows up again a month later, like 1 week after the birth of the kid, Christmas time, saying that he did it again and now he needs $1600 to cover his bills. Of course, they said no. He didn’t approach any other friends.
So not really dangerous, but a guy with a gambling (and a few other) problems.
Then there’s people like the contractor at work a couple of months ago who came on strong, demanded immediate access to everything he needed before he got permissions for it. “Just give it to me now and then get the approvals on your time”. Set off so many alarms in talking to him that I went to his manager, who I consider a friend, and said “This guy is tripping my alarms. He did this and I expect he’ll be a problem for you.” Sure enough, the guy was fired a month later.
As I shut down my computer last night I was thinking, Somewhere in the midwest, there’s a woman responding to a thread like this and she’s typing, 'Well, when I was in college taking art classes, there was this really weird guy one night…" 