We don't know why ConstantComment felt fear when the woman approached her and her bf. She may not know herself exactly why ... in fact, probably doesn't.
The fact that the woman was following them closely is good cause for alarm.
There are, fwiw, many gypsies from Romania.
Some gypsies ... i.e., far more than most Europeans ... do make a living by pickpocketing. Some years ago, when I was living in Aix-en-Provence, in France, I was warned to be careful about gypsies, and one day, a group of about 12 gypsy children surrounded me and, while smiling broadly, began touching me all over my body. It was obvious, to me at least, that they were going after my wallet, and I had to make a lot of threatening gestures and shout to get them to back off.
I also went to a gypsy festival held at les Saintes Maries de la mer on the Mediterranean. They congregate each year in honour of Saint Sarah, their patron saint. I had a wonderful time, and the gypsies (I suppose I should say Roma) were some of the most welcoming people I met in Europe. But one reason I could relax was that several of them assured me that I would not be pickpocketed during the festival. (To be clear, I wasn't asking ... they volunteered this information.)
Now, it is a rather large leap to assume that a Romanian woman whom you find strange and who follows you rather closely in an airport is both a gypsy and a likely pickpocket. But reacting fearfully in such situations and giving credence to rather arbitrary negative associations is what the mind does. This is a visceral thing. It's part of what some yogic traditions call the negative mind (which everyone has, along with the positive mind, and the neutral mind ... and all have a role and some importance in negotiating the situations that life throws at us).
For her to protectively flinch from the idea of having that woman follow them and perhaps even seek to stay with them in the UK, or even pickpocket them, is fairly normal human thinking, albeit a bit wild. We all do it at some time.
If this was a situational reaction and not typical of her, I would be loathe to assume she is particularly racist.
Perhaps she is, and perhaps her boyfriend knows she is, and perhaps he had some good motives in bringing the issue up some weeks later.
But from my patch of earth, I can't tell if she's racist, and I can't tell whether he was well-intentioned in bringing the matter up, weeks later, when they were both in their cups.
So I find any rush to judgment a bit unfair.
That said, the topic hasn't had good sailing.
