Why does it creep you out, Stopdog?

I don't see protectiveness as a particularly intimate thing.

I keep my eyes peeled for children and older people in distress as a matter of course - a child with parents shouting aggressively at him, and an older woman who looked unwell and in pain, are two recent examples where I felt a surge of protectiveness and waded in and got involved. I do not know those people at all, only think of them in instances like now, but just really wanted to protect someone in a vulnerable position. I wasn't thinking that I was close to these people, iyswim, but they looked unhappy and there was something I could do. Protectiveness spurred that on.