Fight

You might have already decided, having spared a glance at the unexplainably tiny mugshot that rests on the top right of this page, that I am not really the fighting type. Perhaps it is the lovely pink tassels on my hoodie. Perhaps it is the fetching blue fingerless mittens. Perhaps it is the fact that it is clearly the middle of a cold night, and I am eating an iced lolly with apparent enjoyment.

You would be correct in your supposition. I am strictly a lover, rather than a fighter. (And how!)

Despite the aforementioned rages, I like to think I have a long fuse, especially against human provocation. It takes a fair bit for people to piss me off, a lot more in fact than is required by inanimate objects like low coffee tables and tins falling off shelves. This means that I am unlikely to respond with violence to all but the most hearty smack talk.

This makes me sound like some kind of pacifist Zen master, who fears to tread the path of anger lest the ancient kung-fu dragon imprisoned in my soul once again ventures forth to punish evildoers by kicking them in the face until they fall over. What it really means is: I am an abject coward. Like, totally. I’m frightened of everything, especially getting kicked in the face until I fall over.

I am, therefore, not going to be starting any fights, unless they are the sorts of fights where you hide until your assailant has given up and gone to watch a movie or started making toast, and then you wallop them over the head with a half brick. Now I know Hollywood exaggerates everything but I’m pretty sure that if those sorts of encounters counted as legitimate scraps we would have been told by now. The only time I’m going to get into a proper fight is after I’ve exhausted all my other options. These include but are not limited to:

1. Running.
2. Hiding.
3. Paying someone else to fight on my behalf.
4. Asking to work off my incurred debt to my assailant, perhaps by becoming their valet or PA.
5. Getting on my knees and begging them not to hit me.

This ought to mean that I manage, through a combination of sheer cowardly custarding and patience, to avoid getting in a rumble at all. Not so, and why? Because I’m the sort of guy people love to fight. On the face of it, it seems obvious: I’m an obnoxious bad dancer with a sharp tongue, who spills his pint a lot. But that isn’t the real reason. People want to fight me because I am a coward.

Nash has, as always, made this point before, and accurately described the sort of person that takes part in nightly street brawls. I would, if I may, like to explore the concept a little further, to demonstrate that not only is violence against others reprehensible, but also a big sack of bullshit.

The masculine culture of fighting in public operates under some pretty fuzzy logic. We are taught from a young age that hitting people isn’t nice, no seriously Billy stop that or you will get SUCH A SMACK. No weekend warrior, despite their level of intoxication, really thinks that clobbering another person is all fine and dandy. The actual act, therefore, requires some pretty hefty rationalisation to make it palatable.

Fighting is seen as a competition, or a means to settle disagreements. Two men enter, one man leaves upright. It brings to mind the epic wrestling bouts of the Olympian Greeks, or perhaps the gladiatorial contests of the Romans. Maybe even the seconded duals involving sword and pistol partaken in by Jacobean gentlemen to settle arguments and pay debts of honour. Well, it brings them to my mind, but I doubt a significant fraction of these recreational rumblers paid close attention in history lessons.

The point I’d like to make is that the fights I see in and out of clubs, in train stations and house parties, the sort I can sense arriving like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, aren’t a competition of any sort, and settle no arguments. Perhaps if the gladiatorial aspect was stronger one might claim that they were battles of honour and perhaps the occasional few are. But I can say in all honesty that I have never seen a fight in which none of the following took place:

a) One participant was significantly larger, more aggressive or better armed than another.
b) There was a discrepancy in numbers, i.e. one poor bastard was outnumbered.
c) The fight was begun instantly and without warning, to the shock of one party.

The last one is one I see most often. You upset another young man through some minor or imagined slight, and they nut you before you can assess the situation. The next morning they tell their friends about the sarky cunt that started on them, and how they sorted him out. I’ve been shoved, punched and headbutted without warning. I have NEVER been challenged to a fight.

The myth of ‘talking it outside’ is exactly that, existing only in BBC1 soaps and romantic comedies. People that are regularly involved in fights are bullies, sorry chaps. You don’t start a fight you can’t win, and so you don’t start a fight you aren’t certain you can win. Unfortunately, well… I look like a fight you can win. Maybe I should change my profile picture.