[OT] poll on inappropriate behavior

[dogscoff]

Where I live the possibility of you or the other guy carrying a concealed weapon is pretty much zero. Thankfully. It's just not something I have to consider.

Obviously there crooks out there with guns but they would most likely show the weapon straight away (give me your wallet) or, if they wanted you dead for some reason, shoot and get the hell out without spending time on posturing.

So as far as I'm concerned, if there's shoving, there's no gun.

[Gryphin]

Probably best to read this and my prior Posts knowing I had been picked on most of my life for being "different".
So, back to the question:
I think as in "Most" things. It depends.
That was beginning of the 9th grade, and I was 14. The year was 1969. I did not have to worry about knives or guns and such.
I did have to worry about becoming bully bait. As it is I got lucky. He could have been very seriously hurt, (this I learned later). My action was probably more an impulse driven by fear than some thought out strategy.

Generally speaking:
If you are in a non mortal situation
And If You can't back out
Strke first with no warning

If you are in a situation where someone might get killed do your best to back out.
Still I consider it a Darwin thing for an adult to be able to avoid such situations. Kids in school don’t always have this option to avoid these situations. You could be bleeding on the floor before someone with sufficient authority can intervene. I use the word “sufficient” because some teachers are unable to stop or breakup a fight.

Note: I generalize and "All Generalizations are False" (including that one).

[Loser]

While I did not specifically mean a school, the environment I had in mind often reminds me of Junior High. But I'm not the one who punches a guy in the nose for shoving me.

Unrelated Storytelling Interlude

The Last time I was in a situation where the posturing had elevated to small displays of violence I was standing in the middle of a street outside a friend's house confronting a drunk shirtless teenager who was clumsily swinging around a very ornate nunchaku ("fancy pair of nunchucks?", which is better terminology?). He had been thrown out of the party, and was persisting in the loud and unacceptable behavior that had gotten him thrown out.

I had a soaked towel over my shoulders and had put something in my hair to make it slick. I had left my glasses, belt, and wallet inside, just in case. My insides were quaking, and I thought to myself again that I am a coward afflicted with a dangerous disease of stupidity and pride.

There were some real bruisers at the party, but those kids were on probation, and their friends were holding them back from fights that could get them in more trouble. No one was going to call the police, because of the neighborhood and what was going on at the party.

I had sent everyone else inside the house ("when you don't know who's in charge you are"), but he continued to direct his threats toward their faces in the windows more than me. He never came close to me, which was good for me. Standing with false certainty is easier than moving with it.

This fool's hysterics, by this time, consisted primarily of "You want some of this?" (gestures elsewhere) "You want some of this?". What do you say to that? "No, not really. But I do need you to leave." Whatever, he went away.

At that point I was pretty proud of myself. I had gone out and talked to the ego monster and had made him go away, and I had marshaled calmer minds to keep the probates from getting in trouble.

Four hours later I was pretty sure I had one the wrong thing. The bastard came back several times. He broke windows, keyed a few cars, and even tried to force his way into the house at one point, opening the door suddenly and forcefully and giving the petite host a nasty knock on the head. Turns out, though she denied having anything to do with him, his girlfriend was still at the party, and he felt he needed to talk with her. (They were together again the next day... Some people's children.) He was running now, and no one was going to go far after him in the dark.

If I had just let the bruisers kick the snot out of this troublemaker from the get go it would have prevented a lot of grief, and might have taught him a lesson. The host should have thrown him out earlier, but her 'bouncer' wasn't there that night and she doesn't seem to 'have it in herself'.

Whatever.

I have 'not enough violence' problems more often than I have 'too much violence' problems.

[Nocturnal]

Okay you're right, I wouldn't really pull steel, that's overreacting. But they teach us in Ninjitsu that someone who is shoving or taunting like that is asking to get hit, and also to give people what they want. So if he's asking so much, hit him - give him what he wants, kick the snot out of him.

I have two options if someone shoves me - most often I just step back a bit (unless there's a wall in which case I stand where I am) and stare 'em in the eye. Sometimes I'll even take a few shoves in the protected area of the chest without moving, when I see it isn't serious, just to show I'm untouchable. That usually confuses them and they leave and don't come back.

But we're supposed to recognize a real situation, which rarely begins in shoving and never in posturing. Since it's so common in streetfighting though, we learn very many techniques that begin from a shove. So if someone shoves me in the street without warning and I'm not sure how "real" it is, I'm trained to break his arm and bring him to the ground immediately. And I'd rather always err on the side of "caution" - that being the side which leaves me in best health - the other guy's big-shot lawyer be damned. I wouldn't really KILL someone over a shove or punch, but I'd be more than willing to wound his arms for him, feed him some asphalt, and maybe prevent him from breeding for a while. All in all, it's probably better for them, teaches them to be more careful.

I don't have a criminal record.

Since I started making this a practice in high school, no bullies picked on me or anyone I knew. They even looked up to me, mixed blessing as that is.

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Loser:
Kids these days are dumb and start their fights out with shoving matches, like some lame kind of foreplay to violence.

If a man is shoved, and responds by immediately punching his 'assailant' in the nose/face/jaw, could it be called a sucker-punch?

Kids these days? Kids these days have changed (depending on what you mean by "kids"). When I was a kid (age 7-12), a fight was pretty much "gentlemanly". It was usually a wrestling match and the winner pinned the shoulders of the loser to the ground and the word, uncle, was usually mentioned. After that age, fists became useful and prevalent. Bruised eyes and bloody noses were the norm all the way into high school. After a fight was over, it was usually over for good.

Kids these days? I'd hate to guess. I hear too many horror stories. And the amount of violence in TV, movies, video games, etc., coupled with the environment a lot of kids live in seems to have led to this: if you lose a fight, you plot a way to get even and USUALLY it involves some sort of escalation (if someone hit you with a stick or pole, you bring back a knife; if someone pulled a knife on you, you get hold of a gun). Fights between kids these days can result in permanent damage ranging from teeth and eyes to, well, death.

Now, to men, as you segued. First of all, I don't think a person is less of a man for walking away from a shove. Sounds like a cliche', I know.

But, to analyze it (to death, probably...pardon the pun), situations are very different. The reason for the shove is the essence. Why did it occur? A drunk? In public? At a private party? A friend? A stranger? Is talking a viable alternative?

Well, you had better have been working on all those answers before that shove occurred. When I was in the army, stationed in Asia, I studied martial arts. For the uninitiated, martial arts, in its truest form, is more of a life style than a way to fight. You learn fighting techniques but we spent much more time on awareness, control, diet, and a balance in life. I'd like to think that what I learned in 2 years is partly attributable to me avoiding situations where things turned physical. Recognizing the signs things were "turning bad" early. Yes, I have found myself in situations where I thought a confrontation was going to turn into conflict. Now, don't get me wrong...I don't fancy myself some great fighter. I haven't practiced in over 20 years. But from the day I gained some confidence in how to handle myself in a fight I also gained some insight into what it could result in. I always asked myself (at some point when things looked like they were turning for the worse) if the argument justified someone dying (because that has been my goal for quite some time now...killing anyone I get into a fight with...so I don't have to look over my shoulder day after day when the fight is over). Or dying myself. Every answer has been NO! Again, don't get me wrong...I've only found myself in situations where voices were raised to yelling levels and the usual 4-letter cuss words a major part of the vocabulary 3 or 4 times in 25 years. None of those situations made me answer YES to the question of "is this worth someone dying?". As a result, none of those situations ever got physical. I walked away, or apologized, or said I had done something wrong or SOMETHING. Oh, and in one case, at a poker table, a guy accused me of cheating and threw back his chair and stood behind me daring me to get up (while everyone else sat there and watched)...I just sat there (judging where his crotch was in relatinship to my elbow) and waited to see if he would hit a guys whose back was to him and sitting down. He called me a few more names and finally people at the table got him to sit down. Did I care if I looked to be the coward? Nope. It wasn't worth someone dying (perhaps). Another time, a few years ago, it was a (casual) friend who got drunk as hell and thought I made an inference to him being gay. Again, though he was in my face and had his hand pressed against my chest, circumstances dictated it wasn't worth the possibility of death or a hell of a maiming. I can still remember getting my fingers ready to put through his throat and shifting myself to aim my knee at his croth (and shaking like hell at the thought of what was getting ready to happen).

Yeah, long-winded. Fighting very rarely is worth it. These days, fighting, whether it be teens or adults, can result in a death at the point of the fight or a death later as the loser broods over how to get even. It's tough trying to teach some of this to our 11-year-old...I don't want him to be a "pansy" or become "bully-bait" but I don't want him to get in fights all the time over stupid kid crap either just to be macho. I also don't want to receive a call about him from a coroner.

I didn't vote because there wasn't a choice for me.

[Kamog]

I'm not sure why somebody would start by shoving somebody else. If he wants to fight, why doesn't he start off by swinging his fist? Maybe he just wants to intimidate the other guy by acting tough but doesn't really want to fight.

[Erax]

No, he wants to fight all right, but he has to go through this ritual. There's no explanation.

Me, I was taught not to talk back, not to shove back. Yeah right, like that works.

But this was the 80s, and all the real bullies or wackos got involved with drugs and parted ways from me (one of them, I learned later, went into a mental institution). So all that was left was kids who wanted to play bully - and the first time I faced one one them with that 'OK, let's fight' look they all backed down and never bothered me again.

After that, I never again got into a potential fight situation. And people are always extraordinarily nice to me - my wife says that it's because I look intimidating.

So if someone decides to shove me, either he's extremely self-confident or he's got some backup I don't know about. Since I probably won't know for certain which is which, the rational thing to do would be to not fight back. But I can't say for certain that I would act rationally in such a situation.