Meeting strangers

I find that as a solo female traveller, you have to obviously be a bit more wary of random strangers that talk to you. I find that each stranger that approaches you will have one of three motives:

1. They want your money
2. They want to get in your pants
3. They are simply just being friendly

I wish that everyone could just be a category 3, but I think going out with that assumption is probably a quick recipe for winding up in a ditch somewhere.

A lot of the time during an exchange with a stranger you'll jump between categories as the conversation progresses.
For example, there is an Indonesian guy who calls himself Fonda that calls out to me whenever I walk past. He tells me he's an artist. The first day I met him he told me he was an artist and wanted to show me his work (Cat. 1). I brushed him off and kept going. The next day he called out to me, remembering my name and we had a simple conversation (Cat. 3). Sometimes people can jump between categories in just a few seconds. Today as he called out to me I went and sat next to him for a quick chat. We exchanged talk about each others days (Cat. 3). He told me he'd been trying to sell a painting of his to an Italian restaurant but they hadn't bought it (Cat. 3). Then he asked he I wanted to see it (Cat. 1/3). "In this shop behind us?" I asked. "No, it's in my room," he replied (Cat. 2). I brushed him off saying I had dinner plans with a friend and said goodbye. A lot of people do seem to be genuinely friendly.. but it's always really quite difficult to work out if they are in the other categories too or if you're just being paranoid. Best to err on the side of caution I think. I was recently talking to Steve about he only has to worry about 2 categories... but it turns out random Asian men want to get into his pants too.. haha!