I had one of those scary moments once tied to a "what are you reading?" query.
Before I totally converted to only digital books, I used to troll the used books stores on Friday nights. If I was dedicated to searching in my favorites sections only and not just randomly browsing, I could hit all 3 in town after work and have a wonderful stack of books to start on for the weekend.
Once, it turned out there was some kind of festival going on near the east-side store, and when I left the bookstore I realized I wasn't getting anywhere for awhile - traffic was bumper-to-bumper and pretty much stopped. So I stopped into the closest fast food restaurant for a meal in the hopes that afterwards the traffic would be better. (It was).
I got my meal, stacked my new purchases on the table, and started entering my them into my PDA tracker so I could ensure I didn't buy them again at the next store, but got distracted by one of the books and started reading. Hey, I'm a reader - we've all been there, right?
Two guys came in...Friday evening, two guys out looking for conquests, and I could tell they'd already tossed back a few. I suspect most women here would know what I mean when I say that one of them had a look about him that, well, said he wasn't a nice guy. Could have been cast for the Lifetime movie of the week about the guy who browbeat his wife and treated her like dirt. Wanted to prove he was top-dog by embarrassing and frightening someone else.
He wandered over my way while his friend took their trays to their table..."whatcha reading?"
I had a romance novel in my hand. It had one of those lurid covers that made it more than plain what it was. And I was a female, sitting alone. I'm not a pretty woman - men don't take one look at try to hit on me. This guy just wanted to stroke his ego by being a nickname-for-Richard.
I just looked up and gave a tight smile (and yes, I'm sure that smile looked snarky) - "a book". Then went back to reading it.
He reached over and tilted the book down to get my attention. "What's the book's name?"
The look in his eyes...I'll tell you, it scared me. I was afraid to leave the restaurant before they did. He continued to push until I gave him a few answers that made him feel like he "won" and he finally backed off and went away. And I sat there shaking like the veriest coward, afraid to leave and afraid to make a scene.
I don't understand people sometimes. This wasn't someone who wanted to share reading interests or was looking for someone to talk to and hoping I was only reading because I was bored.