As an easy going, peaceable type of bloke trapped in a thug’s body, I can relate to that.
There’s been the odd occasion when a very mouthy drunk has given me a bit of lip, but I’ve always just laughed when their mates ‘held them back’.
I’ve broken up or stopped more fights starting than I’ve ever been in.
People think I’m hard… little do they know that I’m probably the biggest softy in the whole world.
Don’t you be telling anyone though… or else!
In a bar. Anyone noticing a trend about that?
Got to chatting with the guy next to me, some fine drunken camaraderie ensued, for a while.
Then he got weird and scary.
Then he got violent.
As I had a full beer in front of me, I didn’t leave for my own safety when he got weird and scary. Weird and scary are kind of what you find in those places, and you build up a tolerance. Also, full beer. Did I mention that this was not my first beer of the night?
What I did do was slide down from sitting on my stool to standing on the floor. I shuffled my feet and turned my hips so I was ready to react if weird and scary turned into violent.
I am not an internet tough guy. My hips were aimed at the nearest exit. I would have gone there, except for the half full beer.
Buddy decided it was violence time, and grabbed me and spun me around to face him while he pulled his right hand back to punch me in the face.
Unfortunately for him, my right hand was down by my hip, he was pulling me in the way I was facing, and I was able to slap him in the testicles with a really nice hip twist and wraparound.
He fell down, as you do when your testicles have been very thoroughly hurt in a way that makes me wince thinking about it.
I finished my beer, checked with the bartender if I could come back after having hit this guy (unreliable narrator is not just a literary convention, and drunks should make sure they don’t offend the people with the keys to the kingdom), and went home.
Mostly, though, looking like you are a serious problem keeps people from starting the fight.
If anything has created empathy in me it’s been trying to imagine my life as lived by a 120 lb girl.
About a year ago. Someone started to get violent when I was arresting him. In my current position it doesn’t happen that often.
Not since my brother was young enough, and rash enough, to try to provoke me.
Almost, but not quite, 20 years now.
Never.
Junior high, defending myself (I won).
Never. I don’t find myself in situations like that.
Back when I used to drink, it was a semi-regular situation where some sort of violence would happen, and being a big bloke I’d sometimes be the one to stop it. Possibly by grabbing someone and throwing them somewhere, if necessary, so if that counts it’s definitely in the last 5 years. I’ll second the idea that looking like you’re capable of violence can be useful.
Initiated violence? Not since my early twenties at the latest, so almost 15 years.
I can’t remember ever being in a physical altercation as an adult.
I voted “never”, although maybe some of the way I treated my brother way back when would count? My mother says I bit him fairly regularly for a while there. I don’t actually remember doing that, though.
I spar weekly in karate class, but we are pretty well padded and clearly not trying to hurt one another.
Well if a law enforcement officer or soldier was recently engaged in physically attacking someone or defending themselves, then I would hope they would answer the poll accordingly. I was not thinking of firearms when i made the poll, even though shooting someone is a violent act. I was just trying to get a sense on how often people get violent (with fists, sticks, knives, whatever), whether in a bar, in a domestic violence situation, as part of a job, or fighting off (or committing) a mugging…
Oh, and on edit, I don’t really count sparring or famial feats of strength as a fight. I fought with my siblings also, and only rarely was I seriously trying to hurt them
Umm… Do you need some help?
I’m not sure how pushing counts as “attempting to seriously damage another person” unless you’re standing on the edge of a cliff.
24 years ago. He perpetrated the fallacy of the excluded middle.
Ummm… People… what’s the first rule of Fight Club?..
I voted within the last month, but it was completely out of the norm, and was just a really hard shove - no intent to do serious damage.
Other than that unfortunate event, I can barely remember the last time - well over a decade I’m sure.
Not since high school (and, even then, it was a single, pretty stupid punch). Over 30 years.
But these are clearly not sanctioned club fights!
Years ago I was meeting my wife and her sister at a restaurant -with a bar!
I got stopped chatting a the door with some old cop buddies, but could see them at the bar trying to ignore Preppy McDouchnozzle who was bothering them. As they verified later, he and his buddy were bugging them to go somewhere and dance or whatever, and they kept telling him no. My wife can take care of herself, and I’m not the jealous redneck type who can’t stand to see her talk to another man, so I just watched in amusement with my buds.
Then, they decide to get all 3rd grade and grabbed my wife’s long hair and dip it in a beer. The height of hilarity! As I walked over to discuss their transgression, PD says “Watch this!”, and oops, accidentally throws his beer all over my wife. PD didn’t have time to say “It was an accident.” the second time, because I hit him like a freight train.
The details of his injuries are not important, but he did spend a while in the hospital.
Boys shouldn’t hit girls. Or pour beer on them.
Last night. Bitch had it coming.
Don’t look in the box?