Personal Safety: Identifying threats/“people of concern”

I’ve seen quite a wide variety of comments on here about people that could be threats, with quite the variety of responses ranging between “avoid everybody” and “y’all are crazy I won’t avoid anyone and always trust people”

Avoiding everyone isn’t always realistic, hell even avoiding strange men isn’t realistic either unless it’s truly a SHTF scenario where you just bunker down at home. We all need to go out into our communities and there has to be some wisdom here on how to more accurately identify threats instead of avoiding everyone! Not to mention that most things like rape and sexual assault occur by people you know, not strangers. But blindly trusting everyone around you is as good of a person as you are isn’t always wise either, and can put you into some bad situations.

I thought it would be interesting to open up a discussion on how we individually determine who could be seen as a “person of concern” to us and how we classify that for ourselves. Maybe I’m the only one here, but I often find myself subconsciously sorting people I meet into groups based off how secure I feel around them. I’ve found it’s often not even really a straightforward process, I just sort of get that “gut feeling”. I’ve met white collar lawyer family-oriented types before that make my alarm bells ring, and I’ve met people actively tweaking on meth that didn’t make me feel near as uneasy.

Personally I honestly don’t know specific tips on reading body language and can’t really give much advice because I “just can tell”, if that makes sense. I’m always warm and polite to everyone I meet but there have been people I’ve met before that seem normal from the outside but literally make my hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I find myself sorting people loosely into 3 categories: - avoid like the plague - avoid if there’s a plague - all clear

The first category is for people that give me a bad gut feeling, I ALWAYS listen to that. I would rather avoid someone and them be a great person than ignore my gut and end up hurt. Luckily this is honestly a pretty rare category for me. If I can’t avoid them, I make sure I am not alone in an unsafe situation with them. I will meet in a very public place and not go anywhere private, or will have someone else with me while I finish my dealings with that person as backup.

The second category is for people who I wouldn’t feel comfortable being around if I needed help. They might help, but they give me a slightly uneasy vibe that makes me feel like they might not be safe to go to or would take advantage of me in my time of need. Things I look for in people that go in this category are: lack of self control or impulse control, issues with anger/rage, history of racism/sexism/misogyny (this one is mainly for men, since I am a woman, but if I was a man I would be putting misandrists on that list instead), troubling views on violence, things that show lack of moral character such as bragging about fighting, lying, stealing, using people, etc. sometimes it might just be the way they smile at me or the look in their eyes.

The third category is people I feel are emotionally well balanced, have a strong moral compass, actively show compassion towards others in the community, clearly display self control and reasonableness. I feel like if I needed help with something they would offer it no questions asked and that I would be safe with them. I make sure that my circle of close friends is exclusively people who fall into this category, but unfortunately I have some family members who would fall into category 2 for me.

One trick I have noticed is it’s all in the eyes. It’s really easy to fake a smile and a warm personality, but it’s hard to fake the eyes. Watch people’s eyes and you can get a pretty good read on them I think.

I would love to know everyone’s tips and tricks on this topic, I think learning how to accurately assess threats is an important skill that can quite literally save you or a friends life. I feel like my gut has saved my life more than once, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out for sure. I’d love to know any specific things to look out for body language wise or how to better read people.

Looking forward to hearing your responses!