Of Fights and Fiascos

I promised myself, I’d save this writing bit until I got on the plane home. That way, I’d have something to do for the two hours. Chances are though, I might pass out from being too tired, or even try chatting up whoever sits beside me. I may not have gotten any in Denmark, but the concept of getting some over international waters with some attractive stranger is like the porn film, I hope to write, direct and star in some day.

Join the mile high club at thirty seven thousand feet

Been there, done that.

I WANT A NEW TOOL BUS FULL OF OLD GUITARS..

Sorry, I was having a moment. One based on the catchy, cheesy but generally shit song by Nickelback.

As a wannabe writer, I also have plenty of material that can be summoned from the right side of my brain.
I have an entire chapter on stoner philosophies that needs to be translated from the thoughts of Conor into the format of electronic text.

Anyway, this blog entry serves as a way of trying to calm myself down. The rest of this entry, probably isn’t going to be funny, it’ll attempt to be thought provoking

I wrote a long post on TOTSE (a website with forums, I go onto all the time) about what happened last night, so I’ll do a quick copy and paste (I’ll edit it slightly too) to recall the situation:



“So I was out drinking tonight and this guy did this really wierd thing with my back. Rather than push me to the side, or tap me to move, he put his hand up my t-shirt and was like ticking my spine, or at least that's what it felt like.

I let him past and for the next few minutes to shake off the awkwardness. It did not feel right.

It's not a case of homophobia (I‘ve no problem there at all) - the guy was hitting on girls and stuff, he appeared to be straight. I also have had gay guys pinch my arse or shit and I can deal with it. It can be a little bit awkward, but you can laugh at it. Touching my back in that way, was not right. Me having a

So I walked over to him and told him, not to do it again, firmly, explained what he did. Without being violent or threatening, just a stern "do not do that again." There was a little bit of a language barrier because he was Danish and of Arab (I’m reasonably sure he was from somewhere in the middle-East) descent, but once he gathered I only spoke English he started getting confrontational.

"Are you fucking with me?"

"I wish I was man. Just don't do it again."

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No, I am not fucking with you. I’m just telling you what I felt and not to do it again.”

After this, he got a little , putting his hand on my stomach, so my friend (Mark, you’re a hero) dragged me away.

Now, I didn't want a fight. I’d like to think I wasn't afraid of one and maybe to some degree I was, but I wasn't talking him out of one. I had a couple of issues at the time, I heard my mother’s disapproving voice in my head and I could have done without being thrown out/bouncers having issues.

So we went downstairs in our group. He followed and got in my face again. My friend pulled me away and so did his friend. We left for a few other bars.”



There’s the first part of the post. Now, that was my “written statement” last night, I had about five pints, so I wasn’t per say “pissed”, but I was less than 100% sober. I was also a little shook up.

After the original incident with the Danish/Arabian guy, I was a little bit pissed off with myself and how I had gotten confrontational about something I should have forgotten about. I didn’t need to tell the guy not to do it again, I could have just ignored it. Maybe part of me was trying to play macho or something and get the guy to acknowledge what he’d done and agree not to do it again. Maybe part of me wanted him to cower a little, but I don’t see how this really would have helped. With four pints in me, my judgement was a little clouded and I really do not like my back (used to have back problems that could be damn sore) being touched.

Now thankfully, no-one in my group took too badly to the incident where it had happened. It meant we got to see a few other places, that were pretty good - one place was very cheap whilst it was open, another, had a nice ambience and allowed us to pick a lot of tunes, which were at the time, a series of hip-hop beats being blasted out, such as Snoop, Eminem, Dre, Coolio,Wu-tang and uhhh, the Foo-Fighters (cos they’re really gangsta). Despite having a good time, I still felt like a fool, letting some form of macho pride mess with my decision making process.

I figured I could have handled that guy, but seriously, if you’re with friends, they’re gonna look out for your best interests and get you out of the situation. Probably quite wisely, before somebody did something stupid - he may have been smaller, but he liked to bring his beer bottle around with him everywhere. Like I’ll explain later, how much I can actually fight is another story.

Here’s the second part of the post:



“Later on that night, I saw a guy being attacked by four-six guys. I slowly walked towards the fight and with a bunch of other guys, managed to act in a sort of protecting circle around the guy being attacked - kind of getting him away, before he walked to fight them again or they charged at him.

In fact, us getting him away almost wasn't stopping them, if it wasn't for the sound of sirens, they would have kept coming.

The thing was, I could have acted sooner, to stop the guy getting into too much trouble, but I started thinking about my own skin (and perhaps to some degree, my mother having a go at me for getting involved/putting myself at risk).

Without being stupider, I'd like to be braver/more equipped to handle a situation like that.

I know if I saw a friend in a one on one fight, I'd let him fight it out, unless he was getting wailed on, in which case I'd drag him out of there/try and step in to get him out of there.

A random guy in the street though, what would you do?””



So yes, I was walking home from that cool nineties hip-hop bar (it looked like a kind of classier and smaller version of Revs), I witnessed the whole Scottish-guy getting the shit beaten out of him. I don’t know of the events that led up to the situation as I didn’t see anything other than halfway through the fight, which I stopped, watched for a second to do a double-take as to whether it was a real fight, before I started pacing towards it very slowly, unsure of what I intended to do.

He took it well, cos he was a big guy and managed to get on his feet despite being booted in the face. He could have had worse. At one point, one of the guys attacking him charged at him with a big plastic post used to separate off the street from a construction site and he narrowly dodged it, was fucking impressive.

What this reminds me of, is those tv shows or films where somebody is attacked or beaten to death and people walk past, not getting involved. I’ve always thought to myself “if I was walking past, I’d do something”, but having put myself in the situation last night, I barely did. Adrenaline in such a situation can give you that “fight or flight” reaction. Where you either get the hell out of dodge, swing a crude right hook, or piss your pants. In both those situations, I felt ill. I wasn’t going to have anything pre-emptive with the guy who was picking a fight with me in the bar and it was the same with the guy on the street. In the one real fight I’ve ever had in my life (will tell that story another time), I took the first punch, not gave it. I didn’t run and fight one of the guys hitting the Scottish guy, because I knew it could have made things worse and perhaps not just for myself. I didn’t hit the guy in the bar, because that would have been deliberately starting a fight, when I believed it could have been avoided.

As a kid, I grew up loving the idea of being the warrior, the cool hero who won every fight and maybe that has stayed with me a little. I -like- to believe I can fight and I like the idea of being a force to be reckoned with, that people in bars are going to avid having a scrap with because of size and coolness, but when it comes down to it.. I probably can’t fight for shit. As anybody who has ever hit me in the face (Jewface, Yakob, some random spides!), should know as long as I don’t get punched in the nose, I can take a dig in the face. Being able to take a beating does not equate to being able to give one though. Then you have fear of a fight, which can be caused by a lot of things. Whilst you don’t really feel the injuries until the next day, you start thinking on what you have to lose from even a punch. Intelligence, charisma and “good looks” can all go to waste in a couple of slugs.

This thing reminded me a lot of a couple of conversations in Lancaster. In flat one of house twenty eight, we were rampant face book “compare people” users. For those of you who don’t know it, compare people is a program that allows you to compare your friends against other friends in various categories ranging from best looking, to most useful. Two of these categories came into question one night as our favourite Jewface kept voting me “not as powerful” as somebody else, often a girl, or “less likely to win a fight” than somebody.

Whilst I still manage to rank eighth toughest, for a while I thought I deserved a higher ranking. As much as I’d like to believe “I’m hard”, I now realize, I’m really not. The theory is of course, yet to be fully tested, but I think most of the time, my bark is worse than my bite. I still feel, “I can handle myself”, but I need to stop acting on this belief. It’s not smart, or cool. Which is probably what I’m trying to be, by letting silly shit like touching my back in a weird way nearly get me into a fight I should be afraid of.

I think in the end, I tried to do the right thing with the Scottish guy, but it was only after I had more support, whenever there was three-four other guys stepping in. Safety in numbers. Two of the guys the Scottish guy had been taking a beating from looked ready to charge at us. I near shat myself - they looked quite tough, luckily though we were saved by the bell of sirens as I mentioned earlier. I could have gotten that fight that would have tested my mettle. Might have moved myself up a few face book ranks, (lol). At least the guy was okay afterwards and I can say I was brave enough to put myself in a position of potential danger.

I’m still planning on going to Muay Thai again over the Summer, try and give me a bit more confidence, so that I don’t get all fearful in a situation where I, or somebody else is under threat. At the same time, I need to start using my head more. When I’m in a face-to-face one on one confrontation with someone (they do happen from time to time), I front a little. Generally, I’d much rather have a good time, party, drink, flirt, so if some guy is potentially trying to start with me, I try and approach things calmly, stress that I don’t want any trouble. At the same time, I don’t want to act up like a chickenshit and begin wailing “I’m sorry man, I’m sorry.” blah. Maybe, I should just humble myself to that level. I need to stop thinking I’m Tyler Durden as well.

Song of the Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98i4s9iKBQo