Honestly, I have the opposite problem.
When I go outside/when I use my flashlights during work, people actually notice, and start to ask questions…
This made me immediately envision the Wolf of Wall Street scene happening in real life between you and half of the BLF members.
“I tell you what. You show me you using your flashlight and people start asking questions, I quit my job RIGHT NOW and I work for you!”
Autoplaying GIFs are annoying, though.
I side 100% with the woman in this story. 30 seconds of advice is helpful. Spending 15 minutes with a stranger buying a flashlight is creepy. You were just trying to help, but she probably saw it as weird. I don’t blame her for being suspicious.
Frankly, you are probably lucky she only saw it as you being a shill. I would have pepper-sprayed you after 5 minutes. 
Standing in Wally’s World looking at lites; this lady walks up to me and asks, what’s a good lite for hurricane season?
I replied, with me it would be blind lead the blind and we’d both end up in the dark; nevertheless I would guess that this (picking it up) 2c mag lite would be OK. Just then the guy working there walked up and said, Yes that’s a good one, I’ve had one for 5 years. 
:weary: :weary: :weary: but GIFs are like one of my favorite ways to communicate…
lol I get what you mean when it comes to quoted text. same GIF 17 times get’s old fast
unless it’s the best one ever! lol challenge accepted!
I usually only offer that advice to the guys who work with me. I hand over a thrower and a floody tube light both around 1K lumens. They use them for a day or two, tell me what they like about the light(s) and I tell them what kind of options there are.
I’ve put together a group buy when there was a good deal as well but those guys had already seen the lights compared to the stuff our department issues.
I started hiking again after about 2 decades. Brought my BLF GT70 on my backpack. Talk about conversation starter! Next week I brought my X80. An ice-breaker in more ways than one…
“Oh, I’d say a BLF Q8 with bypassed springs and some ’351Ds in there, with unprotected 30Q button-tops, and, uhh, oh!, and don’t forget a decent charger like an Opus or Miboxer…”
<b>“Whut?”</b>
I have posted on forums for a couple of decades and do have a pretty thick skin but what I thought would be “it’s a good idea, not a good idea” or the limits of what you can recommend to a non-enthusiast turned personal. That’s when I respond in kind. And will also easily drop it.
As for tire changes……way back, about 40 years ago, I was changing tires on a lit, repeat, lit suburban road and felt the car pass so close that it made my skin crawl. It’s one of those events that I can tell you the car, the wheels, the place, the time of night and the weather and the amount of fear. Was it by accident or intent? I will never know. From there on in, two flashlights and a yellow vest are always in my cars. In fact, my very first post here was about emergency flashlights. Why?? To upgrade. Now there is a Q8 and a VG10s in the car.
Fast forward to me taking exception to a phone light. It’s not suicide, it’s suicidal. The risk is not worth a lousy dirt cheap 20 dollar flashlight.
BTW……if many European countries, you have to have flares and a yellow jacket in the car for the same reason I am concerned and associated danger.
Anywho….this thread has gone a bit sideways.
spartan… m8… you can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.
as the IQ approach’s the retarded end of the scale you have to realise that it is in fact you and your fault alone, the whole world knows it… you get the drift. (time for a polite exit and polite mam’s n madoms lol).
apologies to any retards here…we do try.
I don’t know…
Couldn’t get past “I was in Home Depot. Obviously passing by the flashlight section is a religious thing.”
The HOME DEPOT flashlight section? 
I was in Home Depot last month and while wandering through various isles I suddenly realized I was in front of some basic LED flashlights. Yeah, the flashlight section. Knowing what we all know here, I didn’t see anything inspiring. The only light from above was a super cold warehouse LED light fixture. 
My wife would beat you like a mule if she saw that……and she stills annoyed that she has to learn….ramp up, flash, ramp down on the Q8.
If anything, I would be guilty and many of us would be guilty of not having as much patience or sympathy for not understanding what to us is a simple thing. You wrote earlier that we need something simple and to be honest, I agree with you 100%.
A few weeks or so back, I started a thread about emergency flashlights. You participated in it. One of my “criteria” of an emergency light would be that it should have a simple interface. Click to click ramping, 3 at most and if you held it down 5 seconds, flashing. That is the high limit of the bottom end of usability.
It was even more apparent to me that is has to be a requirement when I gave my wife the Q8 without instruction. She just kept pressing buttons for a full minute and told me the light was broken. This is from someone who used Coast 14 at work at least a hundred times. Thousands of times in her lifetime. Who also has zero fear of big machinery or technology.
So yes, to the vast majority of people, our hobby is probably on the scale of advanced hammer technology. It’s not because they can’t, witness modern cell phone and the amount of knowledge it takes to interface with them, but because it’s just a hammer flashlight.
My father had a running joke about the coke maker (feul) who became a millionaire. Back in the old country, back then, there was a coke maker somewhere in the county turning wood into coke (feul). This coke maker won a million dollars…but could not help himself from looking at a pile of wood and thinking……what a great pile of wood to make coke from.
Same thing with me. Over the years, I have a collection of Coasts. Not as a hobby, but of need. Not great but neither was my standards of what I expected from a flashlight.
So now……what a wonder pile of wood……
No yellow accoutrements, but to this day I keep about a half-dozen flares (the burny kind) in each car, for just such occasions.
Don’t hafta worry about whether/not they’re charged, or leaked, or anything of the kind. They Just Work.
whats a ‘coast’? lol catching isnt it lol.
and a Coast 14?
I think some people just go into over protection mode when they don’t get it, but if you want it to ramp you suss it straight away, if you don’t its such a stupid peace of……
And the reason I carry TWO flashlights.
The car I have has the battery in the back. I wanted to carry flares but if there is a water leak, I don’t want a surprise of what a battery discharge can to to a flare. Having said that….it’s been a looooong while since I looked at flares.
Is there such a thing as being too careful and anticipating the worse? Maybe…but it’s only tiny money to begin with.
I’ve had those friends and acquaintances, they all have one habit in common, any light will do…besides, they knick mine because theirs are real crappy, but, it’ll do me… i dont need to see with a light lol…cringe… guess they’re borrowing mine hu?
Between these two posts I am getting a quite comical image of what actually transpired at that Home Depot. 
As far as information, whether it be about flashlights or something else; less is sometimes more.
Only 2? Piker…
I still got and carried in my old car a 20mm ammo box. About the size of a toaster-oven if stood on-end. Kept all my flammables in there, including/especially fluids. Also had huge bungee cords and ratcheting tie-down straps to hold it in-place so it wouldn’t turn into a rather heavy projectile in case of a wreck.
People’ve said I carry more “emergency” crap in my car than most cops have. Yeah, sounds about right…