When's the Last Time You Were in an Actual Fight?

Darwinism at its best, at 5’9” we never get that benefit of the doubt. So what happens is people think you wan walk all over us and the choice is call them on bs or ignore. After throwing punches at 30 st my gym and getting ice on my face from an elbow I said “I’m a professional how do I explain a Black eye tomorrow?” And said never again, it’s stupid not worth my career.

 

I was never good at "ignore." Even shit that's none of my business. I see someone acting like an asshole, my impulse is to say, "Hey, you're being kind of an asshole."

I was talking to my girlfriend about this tonight, and how I hope she never thinks I'm capable doing anything violent to her or anyone else I love, and she gets it, but she has been taken aback at times by my penchant for confrontation. She was in that New York bar, for instance. I get that it's dumb, and you don't want your career or your life derailed by some avoidable encounter. I get that, rationally. I've just found that not saying something—I've told the story here before about some punk kid picking on a homeless guy in a park and how I decided in that instance not to intervene—often eats at me so terribly that I'd rather risk the fight.

 

One other thing I've learned... If you make a specific threat to someone, they are far more likely to take it seriously. You can't say, "I'm going to beat the shit out of you." That's meaningless. But if you say, "I'm going to take that chair and hit you in the right side of your face with it," people know you're not fucking around. More often than not, they will correct themselves.

Maybe my favourite defused encounter took place in a restaurant in London. Nice restaurant, quiet, sort of fancy, but one table was having a birthday, and there was a stupid English pisshead who was making all sorts of noise and bother. Of course, London being London, all anyone did was shoot him disapproving looks. So I got up and told a waiter that if the guy wasn't sent packing, I was going to throw him through a window—and I pointed at the window: that window. The problem was sorted, and we were given free drinks all night. After, the waiter said, "People here just suffer through things. They'd never dream of saying what you said." I was like, that's why you cut each other up and throw acid in each other's faces. You live with this shit until it drives you insane. I'd rather try to solve the problem.

 

Never. I'm lucky no one never went after me in my teenage years -- I'm sure I said a few things that deserved a fist getting thrown my way. But living outside the area of the school I attended I think helped -- I never saw those people off school grounds.

Once I got into college, I calmed down and shut up. It helps that I didn't/don't drink.

I don't think it'd have ended well for me. I'm a little above average size-wise (5-11, 210), but I'm an unathletic wimp.

 

See, this is why I asked. I am absolutely amazed that anyone can get through life without being in a fight. It's like... I don't know? Those people who never learned to drive? My experience is just so different that I'm kind of baffled that there was an alternative to it.

 

When you're still 4-foot-11 and 90 pounds in the ninth grade, come from a poor family, don't dress well at all, have less than stellar hygiene and self esteem low enough to serve as the bar in the finals of a limbo contest, you get picked on a lot. And when you get picked on a lot, once in a while you snap and get in a fair number of fights.
You know those TV shows and movies where the tormented kid stands up to the bully, miraculously wins the fight and their respect and they all live happily ever after?
They're all bullshit. Every. Single. One of them.
What really happens is the scrawny kid might get in a shot or two (usually the first one) and then proceeds to get their ass whipped for having the audacity to stand up for themselves. Usually while the bully laughs, because he knows even this kid's best punch isn't going to do any real damage. And since he knows he'll never get hurt and has a brain the size of a mouse, the bully never really lets up until he gets bored and moves on to another target.
I once had a classmate spit on me for no reason other than he was walking by and I was standing on my front porch. I chased him down and tried to fight, and he pretty much caved in the left side of my face. Gave me a black eye that lasted for two weeks. Most of what I remember of the fight is laying in a neighbor's yard while he rhythmically pounded on my eye like one of those old Roman oar ship masters beating on their drum. I guess he knocked me unconscious at some point, because eventually I didn't even feel him hitting me anymore. But, he kept on picking on me, off and on, for another year or two. I might have even tried to fight back again but the only way it went better was that he didn't disfigure me.
All of which is to say, if you're going to get in a fight -- as a child or an adult -- you'd better have the tools to back it up and have a chance to win. If you're small and slow, you do not have the tools. Be aware of this with yourself or your child and plan accordingly.

Also, my last fight was in ninth grade. Against a sixth grader about my size. I was goaded into it by some asshole "friends" who were bored and wanted to see a fight.
It wasn't exactly Ali-Frazier.
I gave the kid a bloody nose and he gave me one. He got in the first good shot.
I also broke my thumb and got tracked down and taken home by the cops because some neighbor saw a bunch of kids fighting in an alley and called them (or the kid's parents did). The cops did not believe that I had gotten a bloody nose because it was 45 minutes later and I'd gone to a friend's house and cleaned off the blood by then.
Hell of a fun day and life lesson that was. I finally won a fight and still got my ass handed to me in the end.

 

Let’s not bring up people who don’t know how to drive.

 

I was always the guy in front holding the class sign in the class picture, you know the smallest dude. What I learned very early on was have big friends who will protect you. I had athleticism on my side so I was a good teammate and I could make people laugh, that helped.

 

Do internet fights count? Cuz man let me tell you about this one I got into the other day. There I was--right as usual--when this guy begins to say I'm wrong. Well it was a good thing I found this tweet earlier in the day because I went straight to Twitter ...

 

Totally agree on this. You always hear people
that bullying will stop once you fight back. It’s not true. What happens is the bully gets pissed off, kicks your ass, then realizes you can’t do anything to stop it so they keep on bothering you.

I’m pretty sure I told this story on here years ago. This one kid, who was much bigger and stronger than me, bullied me for a couple of years. Spat on me a couple of times. I tried getting teachers involved, they just gave the kid detention, which didn’t bother him any. I’d try to fight back, and get pounded for my trouble. Every day in homeroom, he’d punch me as he walked to his desk, usually in the arm or shoulder, once in the head.

Finally, I had enough. I was so desperate to make the bully stop that I took a kitchen knife to school. As he walked by, I brought it out and told him not to touch me. He made a snide remark about the knife and walked past. That was the last time he ever punched me, or said anything to me for that matter for the last 2 1/2 years we were in school.

I still kinda think about how that situation would have been handled today. I’d like to think the school would have been tougher on him for the bullying (called his parents, suspensions) so that it would have never escalated to that point. I also probably would have been in deep shit too for the knife. I was already thinking of my defense, which would have been that I already told teachers about this and they did nothing.

Only time I’ve ever carried a weapon with the intent on using it in self defense.

Oh and the bully grew up and is now a member of the school board.

 

Hockey fights don't count. Especially goalie fights.

Played in the same lunchtime shinny game for nearly twenty years, and one of my great pleasures was watching the bankers and brokers and arbitrageurs get chesty with one another. Mostly Ivy League guys in their late 20s or early 30s blowing off steam.

But a couple retired NHLers skated with us, too, and a handful of pretty well known actors. One of whom is famously chippy, and not much of a skater.

More than once I saw him start something he couldn't finish. He never got knocked cold, but he always got way more than he gave. Especially against those former pros, who'd hug him up, pull his sweater over his head, then slow dance him around until he cooled off while the rest of us laughed and laughed.

Cheaper than therapy for him, I guess.

Also very proud of the fact that I was a bouncer in a shot-and-a-beer saloon for a few years and never threw a punch.

 

This one made me think. At first blush I was going to say "In my 20s" but I remember now it was less than 10 years ago. So, in my early to mid-30s.

Nothing spectacular ... my buddy was being mouthy and started crap with a guy. His buddy tried to hold me back because he thought I was going to jump his friend. So, I elbowed him in the sternum and threw a punch to the side of his head. He backed off and I grabbed my buddy before he got his drunk as beat.

Before that, I was in the my 20s, probably 22/23 and I got into a yelling match with a USOC boxer. I knew he couldn't hit me or he'd be thrown out of the program, so instead he dumped a Rum & Coke on my head. I turned around and swung an empty wine bottle at him, missed and cracked a friend's friend in the back of the head. Luckily, I didn't kill him.

I almost got into a fight at the Lions/Niners "handshake game." I had on a Jerry Rice throwback and a group of drunk Lions fans (one was wearing a fake lion head on his head, another was wearing a Lions helmet) were being beligerant and calling me gay, other names, etc. Near the end of the 2nd quarter, as they came back from getting their 4th beer or so already, the guy in the helmet leaned over my wife (who was wearing a Michigan State shirt and was not cheering for the Niners) and yelled: "MOVE BITCH!" I jumped into his face and almost hit him, but someone the row above us got between us and security and had his group moved away from us. I was shaking I was so mad.

But other than that ... I'm usually pretty chill. LOL