Ninjas vs. Samurai / Ice Cream vs. Wasabi

I'm sorry, but I'm a little lost here.

I had a similar experience recently. Someone who appeared all nice but who seemed to be doing/saying exactly the things that were making me feel all uncomfortable. I confronted her once about it, and she ridiculed me, making me believe I was making up all this and telling me I should trust her more (makes me think about the 180 degree you mentionned). Well, in the end my gut instinct turned out to be right, so it learnt me I need to trust my higher self before trusting what others are telling me... Not really a great experience anyway. Trust is a difficult issue for me. But I second manyeagle about humour, it's the only thing which prevents me to go mad during such experiences.

Hi Sedna,

I was just a little lost when I intitially read your post.  I felt like when one walk's into the middle of a conversation and quickly tries to figure out what the conversation is about and what's going on, and only has half the story.   I know it made sense to you what you were talking about, since you were there, but to me it seems like things were left out.     At any rate, I went back and re-read it all more carefully and I think I understand what you were trying to relay.   Basically, you have neighbors who are acting like they are monitoring you and spying on you, mumbling strange stuff, whispering into a cell phone while looking at you, and you can't figure out if their actions really indicate that they are monitoring you, or, if they're just messing with you to get a rise out of you (loosh extraction.)

Sorry about the confusion.  I'm on the same page now!   Never mind me!    

At any rate, I believe this stuff only works on those people who they know will be sensitive to it.  I'm a bit sensitive myself, so I can say that I have experienced some weirdness slightly similar to what you describe - buuuuut - I also have the personality that will confront something like that, or yell something out -- IF I have to, and IF I'm backed into the corner and put in that situation.  It takes a bit of effort on my part, and doesn't come naturally, but I've learned to do it and have trained myself to "speak up."   And in general, I just don't give a crap anymore what strangers think of me on top of it.   So lo and behold, guess what?!?    This stuff has stopped.   They don't do it anymore.   No more strange people I dont' know "coincidentally" yelling BIZARRE stuff out or staring at me and acting funny.  Poof, gone, done.  See ya.

That's really the only 2 cents I can toss in.   They tailor their attack modes towards what works on the target.   For a sensitive person, this is something that would work.  For a not so sensitive person, they have to come up with a more clever angle. 

Try modifying your reaction, see what happens.   And give us the update!      Best of luck.

I'll have to check that movie out. These are lifeguards who work here and live elswhere, and I had thought to have built up mild friendships with them. I believe something more is at work, but it may be more complicated than I am able to fathom. One day I see it with clarity, the next I think I'm being paranoid.

This is a quiet enclave with many wealthy people using the pool, and I had found these lifeguards a refreshing difference from rather stuffy individuals of another generation.
I have hesitated to speak up in part because there are ahem, prominent families (not naming names, but a similar one is Dow) and doctors, an economics professor at an Ivy League, etc. And even when they are not around, I sense that speaking up could only make me seem a pompous ass, to put it mildly. For all I know some of these people are financially linked to the current war for oil, in fact I would venture to say that it's likely.
I'm sorry I did not include this in my first post, I guess I was in the middle of a conversation with myself and was so anxious to see what you all would say that I neglected to !

Perhaps now you get a picture which sounds familiar ! I'm sure some of you can speculate (which I enjoy as long as no one gets hurt) about various possibilities within only what I have said so far, and believe me there is much, much more. I simply want to be smart about how I go about these, as we can be sure some element or other of TPTB are watching. You might say that for now I "live among them!" They see me and I see them and naturally there is a mutual wariness.

At any rate, I have no doubt that as far as the loosh idea goes, speaking up is a better way than the sometimes wishy -washy Libran diplomacy  I have been guilty of .
But whose to say that , considering my long term interests here and the stakes which are involved financially for some, a lifeguard, just as an example, would not make a perfectly nice spy? Probably I am way off the trail, they would not use that ploy . But I do think it odd that some people seem to be a distraction for me here in a suprisingly disarming way; they seem to know I feel an obligation to be polite when someone is speaking to me , especially when others are there. Also, so few people are polite and nice of late that it would seem just a bit to good to be true that these lifeguards are so literate and have so much in common with me (again, there is much more on that count that to me is too strange to be commonly accounted for...) and are such good conversationalists, etc. Perhaps it's the east coast, and the context, but these people work in less chi-chi environments as well, or so I am told .

The social fears I have which may be in part unconscious are to be the death of me if I don't take a tougher approach, I fear.Well, maybe not the death of me literally, but you see what I am saying.

Today the female brought a male "friend" to the pool, and he and I gave each other looks of daggers. It's suprising how deadly a pleasant pool can seem! To be continued.

Heh heh. Good point. Yeah, I know some of the anti-establishement that are big-time "lions" too. I guess they are everywhere.

I once worked at this New Age resort and alot of the hippy kids were wonderful people that I wanted to hug, but the people who ran the place and some of the workers talked "light and love", I now see, to tenderize you prior to consumption!

Ermolai. I would like to hear some more from you about your experiences with "lions",
if possible.

Ermolai, I think I am having e-mail problems. Since switching from Yahoo and Explorer to Firefox, I have not been able to use my secondary e-mail address. I tried to contact you with the other. Please get back to me on this.

Argh the AOL address you gave me doesn't work, the email was returned ("user not found"). I have a copy this time though. I'm leaving in a few hours until September, if you give me another address before I leave I'll be able to send it again. Otherwise in September

Edited to add: can't you log into the web-based Yahoo mail to check the first one?