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Sometimes in life, our instincts can get us out of some pretty hairy situations.
You get an uneasy feeling in your stomach, the hair on your neck stands up, and you just know that the dread you’re experiencing means it’s time to leave.
Have you ever had a gut feeling that told you to leave a situation that just didn’t feel right?
Let’s see what folks on AskReddit had to say about this.
1. City on fire.
“Me and some friends were in downtown Vancouver watching game 7 (Stanley Cup finals) at a pub. Vancouver lost and things on the street got a bit rowdy.
My friend wanted to stay and wait for for things to come down but I just had a bad feeling and said we should hop on the next bus to Kitslano
On the way over the bridge I looked back and saw trails of smoke (from burning cars) coming from the city.
A huge riot ensued and it was absolute anarchy all night. They shut down transit shortly after we arrived home.”
2. In the woods.
“Up in the woods, about 2 am, having a (very large) bonfire in midwinter. There were probably 7 or 8 feet of snow where it wasn’t packed and my friend and I were the only 2 sober.
After about 45 minutes we both looked at eachother at the same time and went.. something is wrong. Neither of us could quite explain it because we hadn’t seen anything, but we knew there were animals in the woods- Grizzlies, wolves, and Bobcats are all known to be there but generally leave larger groups and fires alone.
We manged to convince the roughly 15 drunk guys to head back to the trucks a mile away, as a group, knowing at least the sober friend had a gun on her and could use it.
We got everyone into vehicles and everyone shipped back to town eventually.
When the guys who didn’t believe us went back out in the morning to check that everything was cleaned up, and found the tracks of a pack of wolves that had been circling the clearing.”
3. Social work.
“Social worker – I’ve had a few home visits that have gone as far as getting out of the car, and realizing nope, time to GTFO of here.
Went out once to visit a client that was a single mom with 3 little kids, who lived waaay out in the sticks, because she’d stopped answering the phone or responding to other attempts to contact. She has a pretty bad DV history, so I was worried.
Got out there, and had a feeling something was wrong immediately – her van was gone, and I knew it had expired tags (plus, she had a suspension on her DL), one of the upstairs windows was broken, and things were just weird-quiet.
Got out of the car with my neck hair standing up, and had hardly stepped out, when my home visit buddy (we don’t go out solo for safety reasons) said quietly, “Get back in, man, we need to leave.”
Once at the end of the driveway, she told me she’d seen a guy that looked like my client’s ex ducking back into an outbuilding- I couldn’t have seen him from where I was. Had I gone up to the door, he’d have been maybe 10′ from me.”
4. Sketchy.
“When I was 18, I went to Greece with a friend. We were walking to the bus stop and a taxi pulled up and offered to take us to the airport.
We figured it would be quicker so got in. It was supposed to be like 30 minutes to the airport but about 10 minutes in I realized we were still in residential areas and not a highway or anything. I looked at my friend and it was pretty obvious she was worried too.
So the next time we were at a stop, we both looked at each other and then opened the doors and ran out to a nearby gas station. Ends up he was taking us in the exact opposite direction of the airport.
The man who worked at the gas station ordered us an actual taxi and we safely made it to our flight.”
5. WTF?
“In high school I was attending a show of local punk bands at a local indoor skate park. One of the bands yelled, “F*ck Nazis!” My friend and I immediately got nervous and climbed up on a half pipe to stay out of tbe fray we were expecting. Nothing really happened though.
About 20 minutes later, still high up, I notice someone pushing through the crowd aggressively. I nudge my buddy. As we’re looking around we see a big group of about 10 skinheads gathered at the entrance. We both just knew it was time to bail.
At this time it was a common skinhead tactic to send in a small guy to disrupt and antagonize until someone boiled over. Once the fight started big *ss scary skinheads would join the fray and turn it into a melee. It could be dangerous even if you weren’t involved.
We grabbed the girls we were with and bolted for a side door. As we were leaving we heard the music stop and shouts and screams start. We didn’t look back. We heard later there were a bunch of hospitalizations, including a stab wound.
The skate park got in big trouble because the show was clandestine and there was no security. Total sh*t show.”
6. A bad trip.
“When I first got my car when I was about 16 and incredibly naive. I had went to the local Walmart where a random guy had asked me for a ride.
Now I’m not too keen on giving strangers rides but he somehow convinced me to take him back to his house which was on my way to my route any way. I had this sinking feeling in my gut the entire time he was riding with me, when we finally got to his house he said DONT move I’ll be right back with $40 for the ride.
Idk what made me panic but I caught a whole wave of F*CK THIS in my gut. I hopped a curb in order to get out of the parking lot ASAP and when I got about 200 or so feet away I see the dude in my rear view running outside with a gun. I realllllly don’t want to know what would’ve happened.”
7. That was close.
“A guy once asked me (I worked as a taxi driver at the time, asked me to bring him to very remote place. So I bring him there, and I feel very very worried for myself.
He gets out, thanks me and leaves. I leave that area immediately. I later found out that he took another taxi that did not leave immediately. He left, hiding in the woods while the driver was n his phone. He killed the driver, hijacked the taxi. took it on a joyride around LA (all the way from Fort Collins, Colorado!) that killed several people as he struck them.
He then parked the car right where I had parked and lit the car on fire. A warrant was issued for his arrest after it was discovered that he had the body in the car during the joyride (the remains were found charred in the back seat.).
He then stole a Ford GT from a dealership, killed the dealer, lit the car on fire, and was promptly arrested.”
8. Road trip.
“Was on my first solo road trip to the U.S when i was around 34 (male, straight).
Stayed in a fairly remote Texan campsite and decided to go for a little trek, end up hitting a parking bay.
It’s about 4/5pm, nobody else around. Then some guy in his mid 40s rolls up in a van, starts talking. All seemed normal enough until he asks if I want to go for a ride and a smoke with him…. Politely declined.
Then he said a bug went down my top, without realising i lifted it and he then commented on having nice chest hair ??
Said i need to get back to my group and started walking in the opposite direction. Dude then starts reversing and getting a bit aggressive and insisting we go for a ride. I just got straight back to the trail and started running.
No idea if he was just some strange friendly guy, a potential thief/rapist/serial killer or if i accidentally stumbled into a meet up place for gay men.
Glad i didnt stick around to find out anyway.”
9. Intuition.
“I was in our backyard with my son. He was playing on his little playset that sits under our very large, very old trees.
It started to rain lightly and get windy. Being from Seattle, I don’t normally care if he plays outside in the raid. But I said to my kid—and this is very out of character for me—
“We need to go inside now, before the wind takes you away.”
He came inside. Just as the door closed behind him a branch snapped off the tree and landed on/crushed the play set he had been standing on three minutes earlier. If he’d still been there, it would have fallen on his head.”
10. Wow.
“My car broke down once in a really sketchy area of town at night. I immediately called my boyfriend at the time and insisted on staying on the phone with him until he showed up about 20 minutes later.
I watched my rearview mirror for each person who walked passed my car to ensure that they walked ALL the way past my car. I see one guy walk “past” my car, but I never see him go past in the rearview mirror. I tell my boyfriend “He’s waiting for me to get off the phone, he didn’t walk past.”
My bf doesn’t believe me, says that I’m paranoid and freaking out over nothing, blah blah blah. Bf shows up, I go get in his car, he pops the hood on mine and guy pops his head up over the concrete barrier between the road and the field next to the road to ask if we need any help. When my bf gets in the car, I tell him “THAT’S the guy who didn’t walk past my car!!”
He agrees that he was likely waiting for me to get off the phone and that he was super creepy. Anyway, I’m glad that nothing really bad happened.”
11. Always trust your gut.
“Last year I went to Miami for my holidays. As I was traveling solo I used the Couchsurfing app a lot not only to find hosts but to meet people to hangout with.
This one guy texted wanting to go out for some drinks or go dancing. Since I was on my own I didn’t feel comfortable with going out at night so I declined. He then continued texting me offering to go to the beach, or to drink something in the afternoon, etc.
He had like 3 reviews, all from girls but good comments. Still I felt that he wanted for something more to happen which was not what I wanted so I kept declining his offers.
The next day a girl’s profile who I hadn’t spoken with before texted me wanting to meet to hang out. we chat a bit and lo and behold she was with this guy and wanted me to meet with them. I mentioned that I had gone visit some other place a bit far away so I wasn’t gonna make it.
She became a bit insistent, telling me this guy has a car so he could come pick me up and so. I don’t know why but this struck me as a bit weird and just something was telling me not to go, so I just made up some excuse and stoped replying to their msjs altogether.
A couple of days later I was talking with my Cs host about staying safe while traveling and I mentioned this to him saying how uncomfortable it made me feel and yet how rude I still felt for refusing without a solid reason. He said that you can never be too safe and all that “better safe than sorry” things and showed me a convo with the girl who had stayed with him before me.
She had gone to visit some place with a guy from Cs after which he was supposed to host her. By the end of the day he took her to an hotel, not his place. She felt weirded out by it but said nothing. He fixed them some drinks, she only had one and immediately felt tired so she fell asleep on the couch.
She woke up the next morning naked in bed and feeling drowsy and funny. She said that she wasn’t sure if anything had happened cause she couldn’t remember anything after falling asleep on the couch but she felt scared and confused so she got the hell away from there.
And after the texts she send him she included a snap of the guy’s profile. It was the SAME f*cking guy that was talking to me before. I never felt more scared, horrified and yet relieved at the same time.
So, ALWAYS go with your intuition, even if you feel silly, rude or whatever.”
12. Overnight boat.
“In my 20s, my brothers and a couple of friends were traveling through Europe. We were on a boat headed for Riga. It was an overnight boat, so we had sleeping accommodations. We’re all nerds, so of course, rather than being in the bar or the casino, we’re exploring the boat, cause we wanna see cool boat sh*t.
Problem with exploring a boat late at night in certain parts of the world, however. Me and my buddy are walking down the halls on one of the lower levels. A couple of the employees had barked at us in Finnish I think to get upstairs, we were too far down, but they were too busy to care that much.
After a few turns, I just couldn’t help but get the impression we were being followed. Boat had Wi-Fi, surprisingly, so I texted my brothers to meet us at a certain point, and told my friend to stop talking. Figured 90% chance if we were being followed, it’s because they thought we were American.
Meet up with my brothers, quick motion of the eyes and a barely passable sentence in French clues them in. My brothers were fluent in French and Spanish, but I wasn’t. One of my brothers spoke German and so did I, so I continue, very loudly in German.
Start braggadouching about football and Bayern with my brother following along as we meander back upstairs and get our *sses back to our cabin.
Next morning everyone getting off of the boat is detained and interviewed by Latvian police. Turns out a Russian gang had been mugging people all night in various parts of the ship, and one of the altercations got violent, with a victim being stabbed. Majority of the victims were Brits and Americans.
I’d never really felt a ‘I need to leave’ instinct before, and I still attest that it could have been purely coincidence, but I’m not going to argue against that feeling, either. There was no downside to leaving and going to bed and many possible downsides from lurking around there.”
13. A bad vibe.
“I was in college and there was a really nice guy in one of my classes. A week or two in we had to work together on a small project and I was pretty excited about the opportunity to get to know him.
After speaking to him, though, I got a really bad vibe from him, but nothing specific that I could put my finger on. I lost all attraction to him and knew that I should keep my distance. He approached me a couple of times after the project, but I made sure to be pretty cool/distant, though still polite.
A month or two later (same semester), our professor, Mr. Baldwin, announced that the guy had been arrested for murdering a girl he had been dating — another student in our college– and apparently it was an extremely brutal murder. He gave us the number of the detective investigating the case in case we had any info to share.”
Now it’s your turn.
In the comments, tell us about the times when you trusted your gut and it definitely worked out for the best.
We’d love to hear from you!
