People aren't threats; they are too self-obsessed and small-minded to be a threat; rarely do they glance up from their own little worlds. We live in a society in which everybody is spending so much time worrying about what other people think of them that they don't notice that everybody else is too busy worrying about what other people think of them to form any kind of coherent thought about other people. Insofar as they form opinions, they are opinions of non-agent actors in a play revolving around their own personal motivations, not opinions of other people. Even, yes, lovers.