Is that an extra strength Bloody Mary with Red Bull in it?
Because that would explain a lot of what went down that night in the bar.
I suggest a compromise then.
Men will not assume that women need help until the threatening guy has actually begun pounding on her face or starts stabbing her. That’s when he can be sure. Or maybe not even then - should he wait for her to ask for help first?
Don’t forget when penis ensues!
Your style differs from mine (my chief dialogue would have been with the potential target, “Mind that bloke.”) but I give props for situational awareness and the willingness to do something to make sure things didn’t go bad.
There wasn’t any real threat of imminent violence until the drunk guy started thinking Cheesic was cock blocking him. Which he was. I’m not trying to excuse the Drunk Guy at all, but I think Cheesic overplayed his hand by not anticipating that his presence could piss the guy off and make things worse. Wife and Barfly were probably wondering why he didn’t see that testerone trainwreck coming from a mile away like they did.
The main thing that jumps out at me is that he didn’t actually do anything to stop the harrassment. He just sat there while the guy continued to press up on Barfly. I guess he was waiting until things got rapey to actually do something (e.g. talk to the guy, talk to his friend, talk to the bartender, talk to Barfly, talk to the bouncer, etc.), which was his prerogative. But in terms of putting the kabosh on the offending behavior occurring right in front of his eyes, he was ineffectual. And then a fight almost broke out because he chose the most ineffectual way of defusing the situation.
So I can’t blame anyone for feeling exasperated by all of this. Cheesic’s intentions came from a good place, and I think his wife and Barfly came around to acknowledging this later. But their immediate reaction to the whole scene makes perfect sense.
I tended bar for a few years in a dive bar on the edge of town. This drama played out in various forms almost every single night I was there yet nobody was ever raped in or around the bar. Some guy bumped another guy or a guy looked at somebody’s girlfriend the wrong way or, as in the OP, a drunk hit on the friend of another drunk. Get enough guys drunk in a bar and some of them will start looking for an excuse to test who is the tougher guy. Girls are the favorite excuse.
Usually we could spot the trouble before it started and we or the bouncer could fix the problem with a simple warning or maybe a free drink. Very rarely would anyone need to be escorted out. Only a few times did the action heat up so fast that blows were thrown and those were over quickly. It turns out that alcohol doesn’t just make us guys more handsome and witty, it also makes us grossly overestimate our fighting abilities.
Post 32.
That’s definitely possible. There is no way to tell what happened, since we have only one side of the story.
But that’s RESTRAINT! Did you want him to actually go pick a fight with the guy? That would have been male overreach.
Perhaps he could have just talked to the guy nicely, but he didn’t know the guy. Maybe he thought that would just escalate things.
Again, we will never know.
We can never know which side’s actions made sense to us since we weren’t there. And those of us on this board probably wouldn’t agree on that even if we had been there.
Thanks.
I also see there that the author says he was still drunk when he posted the OP - which explains alot.
There are more than two options here. He didn’t have pick a fight with Crazy Dude, just like he didn’t have sit there brooding until Crazy Dude picked a fight him. If he was interested in helping Barfly get rid of the dude, he could gotten up off his chair and immediately gone to the bouncer. But not before first asking Barfly if that is what she wanted him to do.
The guy was being a nuisiance and his potential for violence was a big question mark. Rather than risk a fight, the smart thing would have been to request assistance from the person paid to defuse conflict and presumably, possesses the necessary skills to kick someone’s ass if need be.
The OP has given us enough details to know that he didn’t take the most sensible course of action. Ratting someone out to the bouncer is, admittedly, not very macho. But that’s what the bouncer is there for.
Yes, that’s true.
In a situation where the adrenalin starts to go up, though, sometimes you don’t think it through that far. Combined with alcohol, of course.
But I think he said something about the bouncer not being a real bouncer or something. In any event, he could go to the staff first.
But even if he did all that, he still needed to be ready for a fight if it broke out.
Just to be clear, I have no problem with guys offering to help out. I appreciate doors being held, an hand changing a tire, or a strong arm between me a drunken lech. The key here is offered help. Most of the time I’m perfectly capable of dealing with whatever life throws at me, and I enjoy doing stuff for myself. Sometimes I want help, mostly I don’t. I appreciate the offer, but when I say ‘no thanks, I got it.’ then I mean it, and there’s usually a reason behind it.
Other than the fact that I’m just a stubborn ol’ broad, of course 
Now you are starting to get it.
Perfectly reasonable.
Unfortunately, in this instance, the women don’t seem to have declined the offer (nor were they asked in the first place, I assume). The men simply saw a threat of violence, and assumed that obviously someone would want to be protected if it came up. Which isn’t a bad assumption at all.
I think the women and men simply judged the threat differently.
Don’t make me drag out that tired old quip about what “assume” constitutes…
Though in fact it’s pretty applicable here.
Judging from the OP, which of course is only one side of the story, it was perfectly normal to assume that the guy was a threat of violence, and perfectly normal to assume a woman (or man) would want protection from it.
If I’m ever in a similar situation (as described in the OP at least) I’m going to go ahead and assume my wife would want me to be aware and ready to protect her without having to ask her first. I’d be an ass for not doing so. And it’s not the least bit sexist either. I’d do the same for a male friend, or anyone who was more vulnerable than me, and I’d expect it from anyone in a position to help me, even a female.
Again, take the sexual politics out of this and it is more clear.
I was just reminded of that scene in Schwarzenegger’s movie Commando, with the mall cop saying to a female shopper “You want to watch me kick some ass?”. 
Ah, but it started with sexual politics. The OP felt he needed to do manly stuff and be a barrier for the women: “Because I have to play the male part right now.”
There’s an awful lot of “I decided” and “I told”, and not much of the “I asked”. If you aren’t feeling threatened, just annoyed, and someone steps in unasked and turns the volume up to 11 on the situation, (in the name of helping of course), aren’t you going to be more irritated, even pissed? I would be.
And, as you said, we’ve only got one side of the story here. And a drunken side at that.
Yes, it started that way from the very beginning. My point still stands though. If you take the politics out, and ignore his own statements about it, it’s easier to judge.
But to him, the threat was so obvious that he thought there was no need to ask. If someone’s an obvious threat, I’m not going to ask anyone else if they agree before responding. He must have seriously misjudged the threat - quite possibly because he was drunk, and a male jerk - but I’m just saying it’s possible for a situation to occur where you don’t need to ask.
Yes. I’m only speculating here, and trying to get inside his head a little.
“Because I have to play the male role right now.” Haaaaa!!! That has been quoted to death in this thread. OP is never gonna live that down.