Personal discoveries

I met this person in the metro last night. We spent all of 6 minutes talking but in the metro, at night, that's an eternity. I was just sitting there reading the Silmarillion when this lady approches me. She has an English accent and I assumed she was a tourist so I responded in English. She asked me how to get to Opera station. I indicated the most obvious route and she said the line is closed so I got up and showed her a map of all the lines and suggested line 3. She was very friendly and got me talking (not hard to do). She told me she lost her bag on the RER line A and was surprised that the station would be closed on a Sunday thereby prohibiting her from checking in to see if it had shown up. I explained that lost and found is in the bottom of the 15th district and only open on weekdays. She asked me about her chances of getting it back . . .. blah blah blah. You see, we really got to talking. I talked about my job, my family . . . . like a dimwit I even told her my name!! Then . . . then suddenly she asked me for money. I realized that for the last 5 minutes it was all an act. Worse yet, at that moment, I realized she was a HE. What I'm about to say may be strong but the emotion in me was overwhelming. I felt violated. Really icky. He never said or did anything to make me believe he was a woman. I just thought "she" was a very ugly woman. He was dressed rather neutrally. He did have a high pitched voice and feminine mannerisms. I was rather perplexed by my reaction. I thought about it all night and even this morning and I think I know why. When I thought he was a woman I felt no threat. In fact, I thought she was a foreigner like me. I spoke to her as I would a woman and most certainly NOT a man - especially a strange man. Because I was not on my guard, he was able to enter my comfort zone. The French get alot of hell for being unfriendly, cold, and rude; but, in their defense, there are so many scam artists and kook jobs running around this city that one has to protect oneself. In his favor, I have to say that he was very polite and probably a nice person and I think that is why my reaction to this experience bothers me. He's down on his luck and he thought that by becoming friendly with someone it would be easier to get a few coins. However, the bottom line is that I opened up and made myself vulnerable to a strange man in the Parisian metro. I think my reaction is the result of realizing at what point I could have put myself in danger if I'd stumbled onto someone dangerous. And believe you me! When you amass 12 million people in such a small area you're bound to have a few thousand bad apples. I'm going to have to work on my snooty-aloof-metro-profile. Sucks.