Gut instinct

Oh yes. Gut instinct is instant. If it takes longer to work out if someone is OK that's not gut instinct.

Aveline

That's a shame keepingitquiet as most people are OK. Some might be more likeable than others but, generally, most people are quite nice.

Quite nice? My gut instinct usually takes me below the surface- I thought that's what you meant.

That's a shame keepingitquiet as most people are OK. Some might be more likeable than others but, generally, most people are quite nice.

This is a tough one isn't it? I think accepting we can be wrong about someone is just as important as trusting our instincts.

Several years ago I went to an evening class where I formed an instant dislike to another person. The problem was everyone esle seemed to love her so I began to think it must be me. We became friends but there was always this thing that I didn't really like her or enjoy her company.

I later found out that several people at the class didn't really like her at all, in fact some of them really disliked her! How people pretend!

I have leanred to trust my instincts more and not be swayed to much by other people's opinions.

Maybe that's why I seem to have very few friends these days! It is rare for me to meet someone I can really like and trust.

My late Mum was a very good judge of character - as I found out too often.
I would bring a “new” friend or even boyfriend home and she’d be perfectly nice and welcoming but afterwards might say “I didn’t really like X very much” or “not sure he/she is right for you / don’t know what you see in her/him” etc.
Perhaps there was an element of autosuggestion, but she nearly always turned out to be right. Alas.

The gut instinct is in all of us to protect us but we sometimes allow manners, convention to override it, a big mistake.

It is relatively rarely that my gut instinct takes against or for a person but, when it does, I pay attention. Otherwise I just get to know people in the usual way.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

No, I’m rubbish.
I try to find something likeable about everyone. I make allowances when possibly I ought not to. I’m too trusting and I suppose a bit naive.

Himself is a very good judge of character. He has an excellent BS radar whenever we meet someone new, so if we meet someone new together, I do take heed if he has concerns as he is a good judge of character.

That's true of us, too. My husband is far better than I am at judging character. Well, I say that, but actually, it's more a case that I tend to think that life's too short to take against people, and wait until they do something bad before I decide I don't like them, whereas he waits for people to earn his trust. My heart is pretty much on my sleeve.

The end result is that I have more fun, but get hurt more often, and he holds back but has fewer disappointments.

There’s def gut instinct when meeting somebody and I always trust my own reactions to that and to situations as well.These are primal instincts and should be trusted .

That's a different matter altogether CariadAgain.

If that's me you are referring to Aveline? then it can take varying amounts of time for logical thought to give me some information to go on. Encounter in past week with a private cum NHS podiatrist and I was fine with her/thought she was probably a reasonable person. But she explained to me that some podiatrists even don't do "higher level" work in their private capacity - only in their NHS other hat on capacity. Cue for her referring me to NHS for the "higher level" work.

Followed by the other NHS podiatrist here ringing me shortly thereafter and doing a medical questionnaire over the phone with me. She upset me very badly in the course of it - and maybe her English isn't as good as it first appeared to be - ie the reason why she mucked up an anaesthetic I am allergic to with one I'm not allergic too and I could feel her unjustifiably determined to block me if she could find an excuse. I checked who she was - and she's what is called "first language Welsh" - so maybe her English isn't perfect. But I strongly suspect it is perfect and hence why she was clearly gaslighting me. She upset me one heck of a lot - and then doubled down on the gaslighting! She was nasty to me - most unprofessional.

Cue for I'm going to spend hundreds of £s to go to another - very different - and private podiatrist that does the full range of their work and is in a bigger town than this little "close knit" one.......rather than put in an official complaint about her to her management. But yes - she was one of the rare people I did take an instant wary stance about - as it just felt from the start like she was not a nice person/maybe even "out to get me" and I was not going to risk my next appointment being with her....

Beyond me how someone could be so "unprofessional" - but she is and I'm not going to risk clapping eyes on her again. I'll just suggest to other people I feel might be at risk from her nastiness that they don't go near her.....

For me, it's more about sensing who might not feel friendly towards me and put a spoke in my wheel. I had a couple of colleagues who may or may not have been jealous of my superior qualifications or something. They were unfriendly but did thaw eventually.
Generally, I don't pay too much attention to a gut feeling; I wait to see if there's any reason not to like or trust someone.

When I was much younger, and in my first management role, I had to do a lot of recruiting of staff and always had a gut instinct as to who would be a good worker and fit in with the team. However, my manager was a stickler for ticking all the boxes and recruiting those who met every criteria. I , therefore usually backed down and was always very conscious that I should never let my feelings affect the way I treated them. Invariably those staff always caused problems either with their work or their relationships with colleagues. In the end my manager would leave me to make the final decision. I, therefore, think gut instinct is impotant.

You've missed the point. Gut instinct involves no thinking. Just instant reaction.

I think I'm basically anti instant decisions - because it's something my mother said she did. My mother was pretty darn antisocial/didnt have much time for anyone very much and very obviously favoured her son (my erstwhile brother).

Added that my erstwhile brother is erstwhile for very good reason - his bad behaviour was why I cut him off in the end. Basically he's very "grabby/selfish".

Hence I deliberately wait to see how things go/how people react. I rarely do instant judgements either way - and can recall only three times where I did an "instant judgement" and it was a positive one and we did become friends. But overall I wait and see how things develop and then I decide.

I used to start by acting like myself towards people (ie as someone said to me once "The trouble with you is that, because you're a nice person, you think other people will be nice too - and you're wrong. They often won't treat you as you would treat yourself (ie properly and nicely)". So I have been a sight warier since I went away and thought about what he'd said (after indignantly denying I was too nice for my own good in his opinion).

His comment about that had me thinking and, from then onwards I've always thought 1. How should they treat me? How would a nice person treat me? 2. Let's assume they may not be nice people. Now how would a nasty person treat me?. It worked a treat with knowing exactly how our mutual employer was going to treat me next. I would just think. 1. How should they treat me? How would I treat me? and then go onto 2. If they were nasty people how would they treat me next? - and I was prepared every single time and knew exactly what they would do next. I'm very "naughty" and would even tell them I'd anticipated their next action against me and would sometimes tell them what they'd just said and done LOL.

Very salutary experience to know what would be bad treatment done on me and then be sitting there waiting prepared for just that....

Funny you should ask that; this week, after giving someone the benefit of the doubt [after thirty years of not trusting her], she let me down badly again. Lesson learned.

Aveline

That's happened to me too Aldom. She just felt so right. We've been friends ever since. My gut was spot on!

About eight months ago I was at a meeting of a group to which I belong. A new member was present, seated at the opposite end of the room to me.
I instinctively liked her. At the end of the meeting I chatted with her and invited her to coffee for the following week.
When she came to my home for coffee and we began to chat,like old friends, this lady said, 'I knew we would be friends even before we spoke'(at the meeting). We have become firm friends. Gut instinct was working both ways on that occasion!

i have always decided i like or dislike someone after speaking to them for a few mins, don't know why i do it, i will still be polite and nice but won't go out of my way to be good friends, i think it is just something you feel and can't always explain.

My gut instinct has proved to be almost always right. I'm very wary when it happens though and try not to let it show. I have been mistaken just once or twice, but generally the old gut hasn't let me down much.

Oh yes Aveline! I know within minutes whether I will get on with a person I have never met before.

I could write a book about the many times I have been proved right about someone when others thought I was unfair or horrible.

The one that springs to mind right now is some years ago when a couple with a son same age as mine turned up in our village to take over a social club. They seemed very popular with regulars and lots of new people joined due to them. The club flourished and they arranged lots of money making events. My friend thought they were fantastic but I met them and immediately thought something was dodgy.

Long story short, they did a moonlight flit taking with them several weeks takings from the club plus money they borrowed from locals and never paid back. My friend even admitted she loaned them some which they never paid back. People tried to find them but they had well and truly disappeared.

Definitely go by your gut feelings.

A gut instinct is more of a warning flag than anything else.

I’m exact the same, OP.
If I decide to go against my gut, I’m soon proven wrong and feel cross that I ignored my own feelingss

Although I think I have good gut instinct for circumstances or situations, I know I have read people wrong.

Over the years, a few people that I first thought of as flippant or unsociable have turned out to be really nice people. A few others I instantly befriended turned out to be flaky and unreliable. So I have learned to give people more than just an initial chance to prove character.