Here’s the story. My old pal (Lets call him “Fred”) broke up with his girlfriend (Let’s call her “Chantelle”) and is extremely pissed about it. This past friday night I went to a bar that we all usually frequent and ran into Chantelle. I talked with her a little and we took a picture. She decided to post it on Facebook and send Fred a copy.
Later, me and some of my friends go to another bar and I was planning on meeting up with Fred. Fred comes up to me and flips out because I took a picture with her and then try’s to punch me in the face. I knew he was going to do something from the way he was acting so I was able to deflect it, and then Fred scurried away. Shortly after, I see him again and he try’s to spit on me. I walked by, got the bouncers and they threw him out.
Soon after Fred gets kicked out, he text me. He tells me that he is “going to fuck me up next time he see’s me.” and “That he doesn’t care if he has to go to jail for it.” I try reasoning with him but it didn’t work. I’ll admit, I got pissed and I did retaliate via text message telling him that if he “lays one finger on me he’s going to get hurt” among some other exchanges.
Honestly, Fred is not tough. He’s smaller than me, knows nothing about fighting, chain smokes everyday, and is generally one of the biggest slobs I know. I am not the least bit scared of a straight up fist-fight with the kid. I will say though that Fred is acting crazy and that scares me. I do not want to fight because I don’t want to get arrested or banned from any of the places I frequent. So, I’m not going to go out of my way to fight him. However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to run into him again and I’m not sure what he’ll do. I know he doesn’t own a gun now, but there’s no telling what he might do.
Also, Fred seems to think that since he hates Chantelle, so should I. Chantelle has never done anything wrong to me and I have no reason to be a jerk to her. Furthermore, Fred says that Chantelle “fucked him over”, when in actuality Fred is just a reall A-Hole. I am glad I am not friends with Fred anymore.
Should I call the cops? What would I tell them? I don’t plan on avoiding those bars and I don’t think he will either. So, it’s only a matter of time until we run into each other.
I would not call the cops unless he is directly threatening your with any type of a weapon. Otherwise, if he tries to start a fight with you, let him make a jerk of himself in public where there are witnesses, and you should be prepared to defend yourself only to the level that it will stop him from attacking you. If that means you just walk away, then do that. If he throws a punch, fight him until he stops attacking you. As long as you show yourself in public as the guy who is trying to avoid the fight, you should be able to get people supporting you.
I really don’t want to get into it with him. I know if it came to fists, I could end it pretty quickly. With my emotions running high, there’s no telling what might happen. I don’t know where the line is drawn between self-defense and assault.
I’m worried about some of my own texts too. Like I said, my anger got the best of me and I threatened him back a few times.
Since you say you also sent some threatening text messages, I dony think you should call the police, as they will likely view it as a mutual conflict. I would try to lay low, for a while and avoid going to places you know he may be. It wont kill you to avoid bars for a while, or just go to other.bars if you must. Hopefully after a while he will have let it go and it wont be such a big deal to him. One further note, although you and chantelle didnt do anything wrong, imo it was in poor taste and unnecessary to take pictures together and post them on the internet so soon after tgeir breakup. A little awareness of this and the bad timing of it could have avoided all this.
Where do you live? In some places, like Washington State, two people may legally fist fight until one person falls if both parties agree to fight. Just pointing this out in case you decide you really want to throw down but are only worried about the legal ramifications.
If Fred is not much of a fighter and he is a chain smoker he has less than 30 seconds to fuck you up before he falls over from exhaustion. If you just cover up he will get it out of his system very quickly.
Something like that happened here in southern California. Two guys got into a fender-bender auto crash, and started throwing punches at each other. Then they wised up, stopped…and rented a real boxing ring with proper equipment and a professional referee, and staged a proper boxing bout. They sold tickets, and donated the money raised to charity.
IMO Chantelle is being something of an instigator in this re taking a pic with his friend and quite deliberately posting it on Facebook. She knew this would set him off and her actions put you in harm’s way with a violent and unstable man. This was deliberate re stirring things up with him. She is setting you up and you are being manipulated by her as a proxy to irritate her ex.
IMO he is *more *dangerous to you gave his lack of physical capacity because he will eventually potentially turn to a deadly weapon at some point. DO NOT ignore him, this is how people get killed.
If you can reach out to him with him going off have a conversation re letting it go. Doing this presumes you are not physically involved with Chantelle.
Do not ignore the threat he presents this I how people get killed. I wold also re-evaluate how much of a “friend” Chantelle is as she seems to have no problem putting you in the middle of a stupid and potentially dangerous shitstorm.
Chantelle is an idiot and trouble maker. Make her and ex-friend as well.
As for Fred, send him one last text. Say it was a dumb thing to do, tell him you have no interest in getting into a fight with him and that anything from here on is completely on him (playing cover-your-ass-here).
Then make sure you have witnesses handy if he shows up & starts swinging.
If he takes a swing again, don’t kick his ass. Instead, bitch slap the shit out of him. Not many things will embarrass a man as much as getting slapped hard by another man. And I mean HARD, basically a high speed slap as powerfully as you can muster, like you are trying break him. It will be loud, it will hurt, and it will deflate his ego, particularly if he has his beer muscles on. You will publicly establish alpha status beyond a doubt. Every witness will know that your strike could have been a closed fist to the nose, but you chose a slap across the face instead. If you need to restrain him after the slap, do so. Just don’t give him a beat down.
Call the cops and separate from that get a court’s restraining order against Fred, so that if you end up in a fight, you will not have difficulty proving that he assaulted you rather than you assaulted him, and so that he will have to bugger off when he comes across you, leaving you free to enjoy your regular haunts.
Keep all emails and texts from him for use as evidence, and do not respond to him.
If he accosts you, do not respond to him, and call the police and have him charged for breach of the restraining order.
And seeing as you’re already paying for something you have not done, you might as well bone Chantelle while you are at it. (Well, maybe that’s not the best advice.)
I don’t see how I did anything wrong. Chantelle has never done anything wrong to me. I ran into her, we talked and took a picture. I’m not going to hate her just because Fred does. That shit is between them.
Astro, that is really what I am worrying about. I’m afraid he’ll get a weapon and do something crazy.
What I did at the bar was simply walked away and told the bouncers. They threw him out and that was that. I plan on doing that again should I run into him again when I am out. I don’t know how good of a long term solution that will be though.
I told him not to attack me and I won’t attack him. But I also said if he lays one finger on me that ill fuck him up. I know it’s childish but I don’t know what to do. I was getting angry getting called out like that and I thought maybe I would put some fear in him since trying to reason was not working.