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Inspired by a post in the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
polyamory community a few weeks ago, talking about dating safety-- one commenter stated that they'd "had a bad feeling" on the way to a date, and had immediately turned around and gone home (it was heavily implied in the comment that they had never contacted the date further, and they never contradicted it when being questioned about that). Basically, their excuse was "I thought they were a bad person, for no reason at all, and I'm excused any rude behavior on the grounds of protecting my personal safety, even if SOME polite behavior (such as calling to cancel) might have also been perfectly safe."
So, here's a little story, from the way-back machine. Our hero, young Corrvin, was a sophomore in college, almost 19 years old, and shopping at the 24-hour grocery store in their huge produce department. A large, bearded, dour-looking, muscular man wearing a well-worn black leather jacket and faded jeans was also shopping, but kept looking at me. He'd look away when I looked at him, and then look back. I got a really creepy "he's very interested in me for some reason" feeling, and was mentally plotting out what to do, how to get store security if I needed walked to my car, and so on.
After about five minutes, the guy walked up to me, stood a few feet back, and said, "Don't I know you?" At that distance, I saw the teeny tiny (about 1/2" across) enameled pink-triangle pin, at which point I realized that he'd been at the campus not-straight-people's club meeting about two days before that. We smiled at each other and said a few things and then both continued our shopping.
So, that said, here's a poll--
[Poll #765877]
polyamory community a few weeks ago, talking about dating safety-- one commenter stated that they'd "had a bad feeling" on the way to a date, and had immediately turned around and gone home (it was heavily implied in the comment that they had never contacted the date further, and they never contradicted it when being questioned about that). Basically, their excuse was "I thought they were a bad person, for no reason at all, and I'm excused any rude behavior on the grounds of protecting my personal safety, even if SOME polite behavior (such as calling to cancel) might have also been perfectly safe."So, here's a little story, from the way-back machine. Our hero, young Corrvin, was a sophomore in college, almost 19 years old, and shopping at the 24-hour grocery store in their huge produce department. A large, bearded, dour-looking, muscular man wearing a well-worn black leather jacket and faded jeans was also shopping, but kept looking at me. He'd look away when I looked at him, and then look back. I got a really creepy "he's very interested in me for some reason" feeling, and was mentally plotting out what to do, how to get store security if I needed walked to my car, and so on.
After about five minutes, the guy walked up to me, stood a few feet back, and said, "Don't I know you?" At that distance, I saw the teeny tiny (about 1/2" across) enameled pink-triangle pin, at which point I realized that he'd been at the campus not-straight-people's club meeting about two days before that. We smiled at each other and said a few things and then both continued our shopping.
So, that said, here's a poll--
[Poll #765877]
