My morning reaffirmed that avoidance is key.

I just had a fun little morning experience.To be clear from the start I did not draw or even get close to drawing my gun. The situation was nowhere near that. This is about avoiding such escalation.I was in a Panera having some breakfast and perusing a magazine. Ironically a gun mag, which is probably not ideal in terms of blending in so my bad now that I think of it, I'll save those for home reading next time.Anyway, this man came in and started pacing around the store and either talking to himself or talking to someone on the phone, but it appeared to be the former. He seemed like he might have been homeless, but I'm not sure as he didn't look that rough. I spotted him quickly, but thought nothing of it, as mentally unwell homeless people are sadly commom here in LA county.But then he kept pacing back and forth to the point where it was hard to ignore. He'd stop by a table and take pictures (of the empty table, super strange) or sit down a bit, then get up and go do the same somewhere else while talking to himself. He went outside and back in a few times too.This went on for several minutes. At least one other couple sitting across from me took notice too, giving me knowing looks of concern, as they had apparently seen I had taken note of him too.While I was definitely fully alert at this point, he hadn't done anything directly threatening, so I kept track of where he was as subtly as I could, but otherwise just waited for him to leave.But then he went and stood directly behind me while muttering stuff to himself. This I couldn't deal with because I couldn't see him anymore. When I say behind, I mean the dude was not even two feet behind me, within my personal space for sure. So I looked at my phone and said out loud in a quiet but loud enough to hear voice "oh shoot, I'm late", (so hopefully he wouldn't feel insulted) and got up to leave. At this point he directly addressed me while I was putting on my mask and said "ya you better mask up...". I ignored it and just left.As I came out the side door, he came out the front door. He walked right by me. When he was maybe 15 feet away, he turned around and said "have a nice day", I replied "you too". He said "oh you can talk now huh?", and kept walking away, but then kept looking back at me and cursing at me, saying he'd "kick my bitch ass" and some other similar stuff. I pretended I didn't hear and feigned that I was focused on my phone. I was a tad nervous because at this point he was holding his backpack in front of him in arms reach of its contents, but since he was walking away, I didn't think any action was called for besides keeping my eye on him til he was out of sight.The couple who also had clocked him came outside and told me they thought he was tweaking on something. (Def possible). Another couple came out and said they saw him taking pictures around the building. They said he had also cursed at them too. Very strange, but that was that.So anyway, things I think I did right:Notice suspicious person quickly and kept track of where he was.Got up to leave once he was in my personal space.Ignored his insults, refused to escalate. A carry instructor once told the class I was in that "when you carry, you will willingly lose every argument and walk away like a wimp even if someone insults you, because that is way better than escalation". I took that to heart.Things I did wrong:Maybe I should have left earlier instead of waiting til he was right behind me where I was vulnerable. It's just that in LA if you leave because an unstable/homeless person walks in, you won't be able to go anywhere lol. It's not as bad in Whittier where I am at as it is in downtown LA, thank God.Gun mag probably is dumb to have in public in urban CA. I don't think it mattered in this instance as I don't think he noticed it, but it is probably like an "I carry a gun!" sign lol. Will save it for the toilet reading.Perhaps I shouldn't have responded at all, even with the "you too". But I also didn't want him to have any reason to feel insulted and escalate.Would love to hear your thoughts. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/2YVAV1w