This exchange gave me the weirdest feeling of déjá vu…
That’s a good point as the tone of the OP does seem to be “better that she get raped than that I prevent the rape but not be properly thanked.”
Thanks. A friend of a friend was murdered a long time ago by two such douchebags who decided she looked good to them and followed her car home. They were caught immediately. One received more blame and a harsher sentence than the other; the other guy claims to this day he was really just a lookout, and kinda sorta tried to prevent his buddy from dragging her off into the woods, raping her, and then crushing her skull with a rock. The main perp got life without parole; his friend pled guilty to second degree murder and aggravated rape and got 15-to-life.
Of course we can fight our own battles, and sometimes we lose. So FWIW, I thank you.
Unless the OP was willing to follow the roommate and Barfly home and stand guard all night long, the OP didn’t prevent anything like this from happening.
Likely, all the OP ended up doing was make the guys go to another bar.
If Barfly wanted help from you and Marine, she could have asked. As it was, you were apparently just cock blocking.
I think you and Marine read the situation correctly, and your wife is upset because she now realizes that she and her buddy did not.
I think you had good intentions and did the right thing. Unfortunately, the way the ladies reacted means you’re less likely to do this in the future.
I assume wife and barfly were drinking? Perhaps their anger was more alcohol fuelled than rational?
I love the back seat driver responses here.
The issue isn’t getting thanked. It’s the criticism of the defense of someone in your party. But then in these days of changing roles, men are often damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
There are no guarantees in situations like this, but it’s LMAO-worthy for people that are sure their read of the situation from a few lines of text is better than the person there who had “infinitely” more information about the setting and behavior.
This.
Something is dated about hanging out with your friends over some drinks? Oh, I keep forgetting where I am. God, you people…
I think you handled the entire situation badly. Here’s what you should have done:
“The fuck you lookin’ at?”
“Excuse me?!”
“I said, the fuck you lookin’ at?”
“Someone who is about to get raped."
Why don’t you show this thread to your wife and ask her what she thinks?
I should think that the idea of going somewhere dark and/or noisy to sit and drink with people a little came along very shortly in human history after the discovery that grape juice that had gone really, really bad was actually really, really good.
But good luck storming that castle.
Everything’s good now, by the way. Just wanted to let y’all know in case you got the impression this was a big deal.
He was more like a burly dishwasher assigned to check IDs at the door, but for those three minutes, he was a bouncer.
It’s not the lack of a thank-you at all that got (note: past tense) me. It was this suggestion that somehow “boys being boys” was a bad thing, and somehow Marine and I were out of line to try to use our presence to end the conflict. And there definitely was a conflict. That was confirmed the moment Douchebag started picking a fight to get me to go away.
Drunk people don’t write the best OPs, and so for that, I apologize. I wasn’t so much angry at the people in the story, even though my OP says that, but instead angry at the attitude that there’s something wrong with handling the situation “like men,” even though it was successful in ending the situation without any physical assault whatsoever. It was the idea that “our testosterone” was a flaw- yeah, it started the problem, but it also ended it in a way that couldn’t have a better outcome, so I don’t appreciate the insinuation that ALL FIVE MEN on the scene were acting like chest-beating gorillas.
Nah, we’re good. I got a text from Marine this morning saying the ladies said “thanks.” I’m not going to ask, but considering the timestamp of the text, I think perhaps he was…‘rewarded’…for his help.
So much to respond to:
- “If I were there, I would have been embarrassed by the scene being created by you guys” Yeah. We didn’t want to be in it either, but sometime you have to do what you have to do. And yeah, the ladies thought there could be some sort of peaceful resolution, but they missed the fact that there was a peaceful resolution. No one hit anyone. 100% success.
2)“It doesn’t sound like you created an opportunity for anyone else to have any input into what happened.” I gave the Douchebag the opportunity. His input was to ask me if I had a fucking problem, translated for the auidence as Please leave so I can continue to harass these women without interference. After that, I did indeed have a problem. I replied “Excuse me?” which means I am indeed here to intercept you, and I will not leave due to your intimiation. Here’s a chance to back off and save face. He came at it again.
3)“When you told Marine that there might be trouble soon, what did you mean by that? It sounds like you were issuing him a warning that you were about to whale on his friend.” First, Marine is my friend, not his. He’s on my side. I was essentially asking him if he was seeing what I was seeing. Remember, this is before the fight-picking. He confirmed that yes, the man was harassing the women, not just hanging around. By the way, I feel I should point out that the guy wasn’t simply talking to them He was leaning into Barfly, who was thus leaning off her stool and into me. That’s how I first noticed the problem.
4)“Your idea of playing the “manly role” was actually ineffectual and could have cost you a broken rib or worse.” Not really. I knew what he was up to, and he knew why I was hanging around. That’s why we had to do this ‘cultural dance,’ if you will, which resulted in his more sober friend hauling him out of there. It was far from ineffectual.
That’s the problem with going out in public. There’s people out there.
Prideful? Are they Amish?
Did it occur to you to maybe ask the women you were protecting if they’d like your help first?
I know it makes me a pussified man but I’m still seeing five men acting like chest-beating gorillas. I’ve put myself in the middle of things a few times over the years, but I don’t go around assuming that women need my macho help dealing with people jawing them aggressively or that this means they’re about to get raped in the parking lot. And if I thought they did I’d have asked “hey, want me to help clear these guys out?”
You said it better than I did, but this. People have been going out to drink together only since, oh, ever.
Her body language clearly said she was uncomfortable and the guy was in her personal space. His sweet nothings were crude and offensive, such as “Can you get your friend to meet me in the alley?” Her response to that was “OOOKAAAYYY [, that’s enough of that]”
My wife was upset that I might get myself hurt. When she realized I wasn’t doing it to stroke my male ego, but instead to help someone avoid danger, she reversed herself.
Yeah, they were drinking. That happens when Marine is around.
She saw it already. I said “Typical Dope. Two posts in and they’re telling me to divorce you.” She put on her soap opera face and went “Baby, nooooooooooo! Don’t go, I’ll do anything!” We laughed and went to bed.
I definitely believe you!
Nothing worse than drunk Amish.
IMO we really can’t judge how this went down with having been there and seen it. Mr. Rapist might have been just a little irritating and the OP turned the macho dial up to 11 for no good reason. On the other hand, Mr. Rapist might have a bad thing just waiting to happen.
As it sounds, I’ll go with the OP generally doing okay here, with the possible exception that maybe he should have asked the women if they wanted help. Of course there are probably bitchy women (or women that are bitchy when drunk) that probably wouldn’t like that either, so you can’t even win there.
I think the thing to do is waiting till the raping starts.
And as for the women getting embarrassed by the scene. If this is something the OP rarely or has never done before, they can stuff it because its obvious the OP wasn’t doing it for shits and grins.
They did want my help. What they did not want was a fight. When I said “play the male part,” I meant literally like an actor. I know the script. All men know the script because we grew up in the same culture. He threatens you, you stand your ground, you throw some words back and forth, a third party breaks it up and gives you both an excuse to back down without losing face.
Korea’s kitting on a girl, U.S. says you can’t do that while I’m here, we do a game of brinkmanship and China comes in to wrangle its ally. Peace is restored. That’s how the script goes. That’s how it went.
Yeah? And how are you going to “help clear these guys out?” Magic? Seems like Marine and I cleared them out with our words, not our fists. Could you have done better? I’d like to know how.