The best thing I've learned is if you're going out never go out alone - you leave yourself vulnerable. If you've got someone else there you trust they can say be wary of that person. I probably used to be too trusting of people.
I didn't know folk music growing up no. It's something I've come to study really because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication the traveling storyteller the bard the minstrels.