I have to agree with Tucker and Canuck. I think there's a very fine line between following a true gut instinct based on signals you've picked up and having that "instinct" because you've become conditioned to think that any stranger who approaches you is up to no good. I bicycle and travel alone frequently, often out in the boonies, and I don't hesitate to have conversations with people, even men, who approach me when I'm stopped. There have certainly been instances when I've felt it was better to wrap things up and move on, but on other occasions I've had interesting chats and learned new things about the area I was in. Sometimes I've found that people who seemed weird were just lonely and looking for someone to connect with for a few moments.

This kind of debate always reminds me of how things have changed since I was a kid, when we left the front door unlocked at night and roamed far and wide. We were always told not to talk to strangers or get into a car with a stranger, but that instruction was balanced by seeing our parents be open enough to talk to and get to know the people around them. Are things really worse now and is there really that much more chance of "becoming a statistic", or have we just been fed a steady stream of incidents by the media, blowing it all out of proportion and making us paranoid? Whichever it is, it's sad that the world (and the US in particular) has had to become such a guarded place.