Okay, say you’re a little old lady or man, sitting on a bench at an urban bus stop, waiting for a bus.
Suiddenly a person comes up to the bus stop and stands there; this person makes you so nervous/ uncomfortable/ suspicious/ afraid that you get up and hobble uphill to the next bus stop a block away.
Can you picture it clearly? Ok…
Quickly now, off the top of your head — what does that person look like?
Norman Bates?
Well, describe Norman Bates? What is it about him that makes him scary? Is it only that you know he’s a psycho? Is the actor that played him inherently scary-looking?
(I am going somewhere with this.)
Look, say it’s like not anybody you recognize, just a scary stranger. What do they look like?
It’s not what they look like, but how they act. Standing intimidatingly close, or screaming obscenities, or pulling a knife out of nowhere would do it.
I pictured a guy in disheveled clothes. He was tall and slim, and had longish black hai parted on one side. He didn’t have a face, just a blank white nothing framed by his hair.
Oh, hell that’s really creepy … hey, wait a minute – are you saying this guy had a blank slate for a face?
Ha! I dunno, he might have had a nose but nothing else. I was trying to go with the exact mental image without embellishing.
I deal with this all the time as a regular CTA rider. It’s not what they look like, it’s how they act. Anything out of “normal” puts me on edge. People who use the emergency doors to go from train car to train car are often trouble. People who don’t take an opportunity to sit down when there’s seating available are suspicious to me, and at the same time sitting too close to me is also a problem. (there’s a recent assault that happened less than a mile from my place, involving a man who abducted a woman from a bus stop at a busy intersection, it started with him sitting on the bench right next to her) Pacing or looking around a lot or when I can see in my peripheral that they’re looking toward me and away often. What else. Shabby clothing or dirty looking makes me on edge. A group being noisy is also a signal to me to be aware of what’s up. Basically someone who doesn’t give the “normal” social cues of “I’m standing at a bus stop, waiting for a bus and minding my own business in the meantime” vibe.
Being female, the most threatening to me is a large male, so I’m watching the big guys more closely and especially if they’re acting in any of the fishy ways described above. Personally, I wouldn’t leave the stop (especially if I know a bus is imminent), but I will move to the street and stand in the street. I prefer getting hit by a car to getting pulled into an alley.
Someone (guy or girl) scary enough to make me want to leave the area would have to be covered in blood or vomit, or actively snorting coke, brandishing a weapon, or something like that.
I saw a woman high on something like meth, extremely skinny, talking to herself and becoming more and more agitated.
An unblinking, expressionless white guy in camouflage with a rifle on his back. Kind of “Hannibal Lector joins the NRA”.
If we’re just talking about looks, he’s a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and he pulls the hood around his face in a way that obscures his face. Even when my husband does this, it creeps me out. It’s Darth Vaderish or something.
Of course, I doubt I’d leave the bus stop to shuffle to another one. That seems like I’m luring him away from the relative safety (because it’s so visible) of the bus stop.
Tall, thin white guy. Dark hair, fade. Levis, engineer boots, black t-shirt, leather jacket with skull/crossbones on back. Angular face, no expression, with a monobrow, deep-set eyes, mouth in a sneer. Smoking. Nervously pacing back and forth, punching his left palm with his right fist.
When I walk to the next station, he follows me.
if i’m old? no, can’t picture it. it just doesn’t happen here. were i a teen facing a group of unruly teens with an apparent interest in establishing eye contact, maybe, but that can be easily solved by simply feigning interest in something else.
Boris Karloff.
Basically, Alan Moore.
Big and bulky enough to be physically threatening, with an intense stare that makes you think he’d actually snap and do something unpleasant.
The Bum from the film Mulholland Dr.
Loud / obnoxious / inebriated / pissed off.
Ski mask in warm weather catches my eye.
This is what I find worrysome about your OP.
Are you looking for Black guy with saggy drawers covered in tatts?