The Husband and I went on a Christmas Money shopping spree tonight. At the last store we visited, we were at the counter, the check-out woman ringing up our purchases, and a guy walked in. He twigged me immediately. Something about the way he walked was off. He did a lap of the store, then walked up to the counter. He interrupted our check-out process to ask if a certain woman was working. The check-out woman told him no. He asked (still interrupting our process) when she'd work next. She told him she didn't know. He asked if she could tell him. She said she would, just as soon as she'd finished ringing up our sale.
And then the guy stood there and stared at all of us while he waited for her to finish. It squicked her out, I could tell. She kept sort of glancing at him, and she couldn't quite keep smiling. She managed to flag down another clerk and asked her to check the schedule. Even after she did that, the guy still stood at the counter, watching all of us.
As we were leaving, I turned to The Husband, and I said, "Fucking creeper."
HIM: "You think so?"
ME: "Totally. You didn't pick up on that?"
HIM: "I dunno. He seemed all right."
ME: "No way. That's an abusive guy in there."
HIM: "Really?"
ME: "He walks in the store and does a lap without talking to anyone. He doesn't know her schedule, and he interrupted the one busy clerk to demand information about the chick."
HIM: "Alternate theory: Maybe they met and got to chatting, and he didn't get her number, but he knew where she worked."
ME: "Nope. No way."
HIM: "Really?"
ME: "If he had come in and done a lap and then asked a non-busy clerk, I probably wouldn't call him a creep, but it's the combination. He came in like he was trying to prove something; he interrupted the single busy person because he's so important, and he's asking after someone who either doesn't know him well enough or like him well enough to give up her working hours."
HIM: "How do you always see this stuff?"
ME: "I'm a girl."
And, really, it's as basic as that. I'm a woman. I live in a world where creepers will show up at my workplace and demand information because, by god, they have a RIGHT to get in my face and possibly harm me because they are MEN.
Not all men are like this--in fact, it's a very small percentage--but they're the men that women always remember. Maybe because they make a point of being remembered for being total assholes. I've always had solid instincts on creeps (thanks, bio dad!), and they've gotten sharper in the last couple of years. One of the things that really honed them in regards to strangers is a book by Gavin De Becker called
The Gift of Fear. De Becker is a behavioral expert who's worked with a lot of agencies and individuals, and he wrote the book back in the 90s to help show women (he specifically says he's writing for women) how to spot signs of danger and violence around them. His reason for this is simple: Violence happens to women. It happens a lot. And almost every single time, you can spot it coming if you trust your intuition.
Your intuition, De Becker argues, is just your common sense working more quickly than you can keep up with, but if you train it, you'll be able to use it effectively. I'm an intuitive person. I can walk into a room and have a good idea of whether or not shit is about to go down. I can read people pretty well, and I'm usually the one going, "I don't care how nice he's being now. He's a fucking creep! DUMP HIM FOR FUCK'S SAKE." And then, two weeks later, I will usually say, "I fucking TOLD YOU," and then that person will call me a heartless bitch and so on and so forth.
If you're a woman, you should read the book. It's a good read. If you trigger reading about other people being injured or killed, skip it. De Becker doesn't hold back on descriptions (but is not, in my estimation, sensational with them), using former cases of his to showcase his points, and I think it's all used well, but it may make some of you twitchy. He also flat-out states that if you know you're in an abusive relationship and you stay in it, it's your own fault. He says the psychological aspect of abuse does factor in but stands by his view that there are people (even total strangers) who are willing to help women out of abusive relationships. And perhaps this will make a few of you see red, but I don't see what he's saying as victim blaming. He's not saying, "You're in an abusive relationship because you deserved it." He's saying, "If you know you're in one, and you don't make attempts to remove yourself from it, you're not protecting yourself, and that is your fault."
So, that's what I wanted to say. Trust your instincts and learn to train them. Don't go around hyper-aware of every
possible danger. Learn the signs of
actual danger. Those are the dangers you have to worry about.
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