How to balance Catholic compassion with personal safety?

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Rozellelily

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How do you balance Christian kindness/compassion with staying safe?

Recently I had a situation which I feel I handled poorly.
My sister and I needed to go interstate and we caught a plane there but due to some health issues on the plane we decided to catch a train back instead of fly back.
We had never been on one of these trains & didn’t know what to expect.

Long story short,the bus driver dropped us (and few others) to the train station when it was getting dark/evening.
The train station turned out to be in a isolated “country area” that is low socioeconomic and has problems with unemployment and ice/methamphetamine (we didn’t know this at the time).

As we were waiting for train,a young guy sat where we were and made a conversation with us that didn’t make sense asking whether we had grown up on his grandfathers farm.
I was alarmed/taken aback & thought he might be drunk/on drugs as he seemed to be so just said “no sorry”.

I felt a bit frightening & said something to my sister (in our other language) about going to the toilet.
My sister then said to this guy “she needs to go to the toilet so we must go”.
Then we stood to walk off but this guy must have sensed we were being insincere and said an insult out of the blue to me as we walked off.
I don’t know if he felt he was being rejected or something?

On one hand I feel pity for people in these situations because their life is in a bad place but on other hand I feel having too much pity and being too friendly to them can get a woman harmed.

Do I even owe people like this talking to if they talk to me?

I feel rude if I don’t but also if they perceive you just “snob them off” that may escalate the situation for them to become violent?

My sister totally panicked and refused us to catch the train with him as we saw he was heading to the same carriage but I don’t think panic/fear is good solution either.

As a woman,how would you handle a situation like this,where a person approaches you who seems unsafe/on drugs?

It was quite isolated (literally one train a day) and approx 10 of us catching the train so there was no security guard in sight.
Even if there was one,sometimes I don’t know if it’s a good idea to approach them and tell them you feel unsafe or could this cause the man (on drugs) anger to escalate and cause you to be more in danger?
 
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Your intuition is NEVER wrong. There was something worrisome - it might not have been exactly what you suspected but rest assured that something was not right.

If he was was mentally unstable and/or on drugs, how could you have helped him? You could have offered some words of comfort, but what if he was forming criminal intent as you spoke with him?

Want a good read? The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker. If nothing else, it will reinforce your correct decision to get out of there.
 
You are not under any obligation to enter into a conversation with strangers.
 
I always feel really guilty about this too.

I generally try to be polite until I sense real danger (too close, aggressive etc) and then I excuse myself. Then again, sometimes you want to avoid being in that situation in the first place.

I don’t mind sitting if there are people near me, but i would exit the situation if I’m alone. It’s not sinful.

God knows your heart.
 
Is there a way though to do it so they don’t think you are just “snobbing them off”?
My concern is by just ignoring him he might think you think they are better than them,feel rejected and mad and then become violent or follow you etc…
 
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Problem is, you’ll never know when you’ll set off volatile people.

They can be triggered by almost anything, be it kindness or perceived rejection.

If you’re kind to them they might mistake it for condescension, if you ignore them, they think you rejected them.

Anything could be interpreted negatively.
 
One night after Mass a stranger in a hooded tracksuit hurried towards me from the road as I left the churchyard in the failing sunlight. He said “Hello” in what seemed a determined way. Something felt off. He appeared well fed and in good health.
Nervous, I mouthed “Hello” back with a faint smile, and hurried along the footpath towards home.

Next Sunday, the parish priest mentioned that he had waited outside, to see if any of his parishioners would be welcoming to a stranger. Not as many as he’d hoped, he said.
My later comment to him was that the man appeared to be trying to hide in his clothes, and I felt the stranger had an agenda. (Actually, he was concealing himself and he did in fact have an agenda, if a well-intentioned one!)

That didn’t go according to plan, even though the stranger was a priest researching his parishioners hositality
In any case, to confront a woman on a street after 6.30 pm wasn’t condusive to trust.
 
Rozellelily said:
Is there a way though to do it so they don’t think you are just “snobbing them off”?
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That’s a good question.

In the “olden days”, men weren’t supposed to approach women they didn’t know without a proper introduction.
I certainly wouldn’t want my teen daughters talking to strange men.
It’s iffy for little kids to approach strange adults (although I taught my kids if they ever got lost to find a policeman or a mommy with children for help).

I think the way you handled it was courteous. Your sister said you needed to be excused, and you left.
 
The problem was saying we needed to use the toilet was sort of said in a quick panicked way so I think he picked up the “energy/vibe” and felt rejected?
That’s the only reason I can think of that he insulted me when we were walking off,otherwise if it was just due to the effect of drugs I would think he would have insulted me right at the beginning?
 
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Trishie said:
(Actually, he was concealing himself and he did in fact have an agenda, if a well-intentioned one!)
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Maybe well intentioned; certainly Ill thought out in regard to execution and without understanding of psychology of this situational interaction.
 
Rozellelily said:
Do I even owe people like this talking to if they talk to me?
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We’ve been over this many times on the forum.
If someone is making you feel unsafe, you don’t “owe” them anything. Do what you did, make a polite excuse IF POSSIBLE and get away. If there is no time for politeness or the person seems threatening to you, don’t worry about the excuse, just get away.

Say a prayer for the person later if you feel they need it.

Being Christian does not mean you are obligated to put yourself in physical danger or to engage with every potentially dangerous person you meet on the street.
 
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Rozellelily said:
Then we stood to walk off but this guy must have sensed we were being insincere and said an insult out of the blue to me as we walked off.
I don’t know if he felt he was being rejected or something?
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He may have been about to ask you for something and would have been equally rude if you declined.

I’ve had some experience with being told off by homeless who approach me asking for money. If I genuinely don’t have any and tell them so politely, it’s like a switch flips and they cannot hide their anger. It’s like it’s somehow not worth it to not call me an awful name at that point.
 
Rozellelily said:
I think he picked up the “energy/vibe” and felt rejected?
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Yeah, but adult male/female interactions run by a different set of rules from the get go.
You have a compassionate heart and that’s a good thing. But you’re not required to stick around for conversations with strangers.
 
Doesn’t fear cripple you though?
I feel that because I was internally a bit afraid/panicky that it then stopped me from being able to read the situation correctly to know if I was in true danger or overreacting.
Also,I worry by ignoring/just walking away from a person like this it could make them mad and make the situation worse for myself?
I worry like if 5 women have already ignored him (in his mind rejected him) that if you be the 6 th one, he may snap.

My sister was so afraid that when the train came and she saw this guy was going onto the same carriage as ours she literally requested that our luggage be removed from the train and for us not to go on the train.
It was a 15 hour country train for us, we had no idea where this young guy was getting off, and we were just blessed that the bus driver had still hung around the station and was willing to drive us back to the area we were originally staying.
The placed we stayed was beach area,but oddly the train only travels from an isolated country town-approximately 20 min away.

It’s silly but in a way I felt guilty that I had the opportunity to stay in a nice place but he’s in a poor area/situation and on drugs etc.
Sometimes I feel too sorry for people and that might get me into danger.

That’s the problem-how can a person know if someone is forming criminal intent?

I also second guessed ourselves because when we told the train people they sort of acted non-chalant…even the woman train staff.
I think maybe it’s because they are “tougher” and seen it all before but we weren’t used to this?
 
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Prayer versus over-thinking. Thanksgiving for deliverance versus lingering fear. Gratitude for God’s grace and mercy versus the unknown motives of a stranger.
 
We’re required to love people, not to make them agree we love them. Always pray for people. That’s the most loving thing you can do. I assure you, people need your prayers more than your politeness.

You’re right. You can’t know someone’s intent … or the future. You just cant. All the thinking in the world isnt going to change this. Leave that to God & leave this man to God as well.

Love them, but fufill your responsibilities to yourself and your family as well. No where in the Bible or the Catechism does it say it’s your job to make people like you or to read minds. The Apostles couldn’t even live up to that standard!
 
Not even Jesus could make everyone like him.

Not without disregarding free will.
 
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Do not second-guess yourself.

St. Therese’s mom, St. Zelie, had a lot of hostile encounters like that, precisely because she was a saintly person.

And even a saint who is good with people cannot know everything. She once gave a job in her house to a girl who needed it, and this girl pretended to be really close to the youngest girl, Leonie. But really this girl was constantly threatening and hurting Leonie, making her pretend everything was okay. For years. Any time St. Zelie felt uneasy about it, she told herself she was just envious of the girl’s “good relationship” with Leonie. Finally she learned the truth and got the abuser out of her house…

That man had a responsibility to be polite and not threaten you. Do not try to make him the victim. You and your sister had a right and duty to worry. It was scary.
 
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