I read a book years ago and this one opened my eyes into the dealing with people and relationships. Entitled 'The Gift of Fear', it is about using your fear (or intuition), and recognizing that when it pops up, even for no apparent reason, you are free to act upon it. That you don't have to account for any fears you have to anyone. For example, the guy that keeps asking you out, if there is just something about him that you can't shake, although no one else seems to notice, it is still okay for you to say no. And you don't have to offer anyone any justifications or excuses for your answers or lack of.
Another example is, I met this guy that knew my boyfriend (who I later married). Me, the boyfriend and one of his kids had been out and were returning home, and this guy was at the front door steps. I immediately knew something was up. I actually suspected that he had just checked the slider windows. And I knew he was not as he seemed. My boyfriend is talking to him like he's a normal everyday person, yet I am on red alert, for reasons unknown. This guy, let's call him Jack, was actually good looking, in a beach boy kinda way, with shoulder length hair back and sun streaked, and he had been riding a bike and had it with him. And the conversation they were having appeared to be an average conversation. He left and I asked who that was, and was told that Jack had been his former brother-in-law, and as a teenager he had dated my boyfriend's sister.
This information was conflicting with what I had been feeling. Obviously my boyfriend had known this guy quite a while yet wasn't running him off the property. Over the next few years, Jack had been over to the house, not invited, but had stopped by. Next thing we know is that Jack's girlfriend has him up on assault charges against her and her daughter. Then my husband tells me that there had been some talk of him not being a very nice person a few years ago, but of course Jack said that the other person was lying.
These people were not lying, he was nasty as could be to woman and children, although he had hid this from my now-husband, and never mistreated the sister he dated years earlier. You see, Jack actually liked my husband and considered him a friend although my husband didn't actually consider him one. But Jack preyed on people that did not have a brother like my husband to defend them. You know the old saying, 'Just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean no one is out to get you'. This book will give you the permission you may need to act as cautious and assertive as you need to be - no questions asked.
I don't recommend many books, but this is for sure one of them:
