Skinny, yellowish or greyish skin, shaky hands, bad teeth. In short, the look of a serious drug addict looking for his/her next fix. Even formerly good people will commit desperate and evil acts when they are in this condition, and they scare the bejeezus out of me.
OK, now I’ve read most of the thread. Is it possible they were trying to have a very private conversation? I know “the busybodies” were my GrandMother’s greatest complaint when she lived in a partial-care facility.
Rereading. And I just had a thought.
I’m wondering if the people who would hesitate to judge by appearances are younger than the people who would be more apt to judge by appearance.
Society has made a lot of progress on teaching younger people not to stereotype. This is a good thing as long as they are also taught to be aware of basic safety concepts and not automatically assume that we all have equal intentions. I think that is happening also.
But older posters have more referential experience and may be more apt to think, Dang, there’s a guy in a leather jacket. Nearly everytime I have a hassle with someone on the street he’s wearing a leather jacket. I’d better watch out.
Obviously, I’m not saying that the LOL (heh) had had bad experiences with pink-haired women on bicycles with ape-hangers before. In fact I’ll bet she had seldom seen p-h-w-o-b-w-a-h. So who knows what was going on with her? We LOLs sometimes have our own little dramas going on inside our heads that have nothing to do with innocent bystanders.
What do you think? After all, we tend to be conditioned by our experiences.Brujaja, if this happens enough times to you you may actually become convinced that LOLs have an aversion to you.
Two things are way, WAY, more important that his appearance or my age. His behaviour, and how isolated I am. Am I alone on the street with a guy talking crazy? Is the next bus stop more isolated, less frequented? Poorly lit?
Do I have a cell phone? Can I take a photo, call someone, or just appear to be on the phone? Is someone else likely to arrive on the scene? (Something I would know if I took this route regularly, I assume.)
All of those factors would carry more weight than his appearance. And, as others have pointed out, my spidey sense would veto everything, in a heartbeat!
Don’t think you can quantify spidey sense, no matter how you frame the question, to be honest!
Yes, spidey sense trumps all from my perspective.
But some of us seem to have none. Others of us have a skewed spidey sense, probably because of assumption through past experience or just poor interpretation of cues. Still others have it but reject its small voice because it isn’t rational.
You can’t teach it to someone. It’s not dependent on intelligence per se. And if perceivers aren’t taking care of themselves it may not work properly or at all. A total left-brainer would say it was “woo.”
That was very articulately put; and I think you are more or less right.
I have to say, the only reason I mention it at all is, well, it hurt my feelings a little bit. It’s an important part of my personal ethical system to always be courteous to elders. And, I don’t really get how I can seem scary to some people. (Ha ha, especially when some others don’t take me seriously at all!)
I think maybe I’m someone who doesn’t fit in any of the primary pigeonholes easily, and maybe that maskes people nervous.
Anyway, I appreciate you all responding, and the fact that nobody said, **“My nightmare bus stop stranger is a chick with pink hair riding Rat Fink’s bicycle” **makes me feel a lot better. 
I haven’t read through the whole thread, but as someone who has never actually gotten the human interaction thing down to being ‘autonomic’ and so has to be consciously aware of a lot shit I think most people take for granted, maybe I can offer something useful - or not.
I grew up being very polite and deferential. But I think it was one of those situations where I started out being the opposite, was punished and then overcorrected. Not sure, but that seems to be the end result. THAT was autonomic for the longest time, but as I began to learn certain things, I also became aware of others, like this.
Since this is still my ‘default’ mode, I don’t think people see me as worrisome in any way once I’m in fairly close proximity. The problem is that from a distance I think people are using different standards and at that point, my gait, bearing demeanor and other cues are mainly going to be governed by my mood - in which case all bets are off.
So to the extent you’re able, try to replay what you looked liked, in a film of yourself, at that time. I don’t know to what extent other people can do this so I’m sort of curious. I do it because I have to. I assume for other people it doesn’t even rise to the level of conscious awareness or if it does, it’s fragmentary and imagination or memory fills in the rest.
Whatever you get from that, play it back, pretend it’s not you, and even with your background and experience, how would you perceive you.
A big part of this can be seemingly small things like how you wear you hair. Do you have a lot things like jewelry that even if they’re not threatening, create a lot of visual confusion/motion. Stuff like that.
For example I have very long hair. If I wore it down when I go out, I would create a completely different impression walking up to someone than having it tied back tight. Add my glasses and but for the cargo pants you might be tempted to ask me where the reference section is.
Funny thing is I find a lot of people are afraid of the obviously mentally ill on public transport, but not violent. I’ve never found such people threatening per se, unless they are trying to be threatening.
Actual criminals will not act odd, they act normal until they pounce.
I resemble that remark. I am NOT ‘obvious.’
[mumbles on way out] 
well if you look at all the 70’s and 80’s made for TV movies with scary rebellious teenagers the girls all had wild colored hair.
You be 70’s scary.
I guess everybody figured I was tripping after my previous post, but this article from New Scientist is the sort of thing I was talking about. Unfortunately you’ll need a subscription to read it but I’ll try to give some examples from a table that appears only in the print edition (don’t know why that do that - omit stuff online).
Certain body language has certain perceived meanings. Unfortunately, those perceptions don’t seem to have any basis in reality and so are about coin-flip accurate. For example crossed arms are seen as defensive but it could also signal invulnerability. A swaggering walk connotes confidence but is easily faked. Fidgeting connotes embarrassment - which happens to be true. Etc. Hope that helps a bit.
deltasigma: Well now, that is very interesting. I believe that I am fairly acutely aware of certain aspects of my own body language, but thinking about what you say, I realize that they are mostly only the behavioral aspects – for instance, I will not stand in someone’s blind spot (I don’t like people standing in mine), and I try to meet others’ eyes once, smile, then look away, to show that I am friendly but not intrusively so. I didn’t even get a chance to smile at these two folks, though.
But I never thought about what my body language might convey as I pull up and over on my bike, before I attend to the interpersonal signals with others. I have been told that I get a grim sort of focus on my face when riding my bike, probably because I learned to ride as an adult and I’m not completely comfortable in city traffic. You may have something there.
Ha ha, you’re probably right!