I've been threatened a number of times in my life. The only people who have threatened me directly and without any fig leaves, weren't serious about it; a man o

I've been threatened a number of times in my life. The only people who have threatened me directly and without any fig leaves, weren't serious about it; a man on the street once said he'd kill me, and being an dumb 18 year old, I just laughed at him. He didn't do a thing, and I don't think he ever intended to. He just wanted to scare me. (I'm not bragging, this was foolish and cavalier, and I wouldn't respond that way today.) The people who actually intended to make good on it, they were always circumspect and left room for reasonable doubt. Largely, I expect, to make the process easier on themselves; to create sufficient dissonance that they could think of it as giving advice. But of course the advice was, "if you do X, it will be bad for you, because I will respond with Y."