Lessons Learnt #3 - Getting Into A Fight Isn't Easy

At the ripe old age of twenty-three, there are certain experiences a man expects to have already had.

He should have already converted six beers into twelve sicks in three hours like some kind of roadie-Jesus, and long since fumbled his way into a girls smalls for three inglorious minutes before shuddering himself into a ball of embarrassed shame.

In short, he should have endured the bitter-sweet rites of passage which have existed in some form since the earliest civilisations - although for Spartans, apparently, this involved fighting a sabre-toothed tiger or surviving six nights in the wild, both of which you’d imagine to be beyond today’s crop of emo-goths.

But there is one such yard-mark of manhood that is beginning more and more to seem as if it might elude many of today’s young men forever: the good old punch up.

If we are to discount school-yard bust-ups involving only a headlock waltzed to the drone of ‘FIGHT. FIGHT. FIGHT.’ emanating from pupils gathered from every corner of the field, and the hysterical ‘stare offs’ that occur between two men across the din of a nightclub when one perceives the other to have bumped into them with insufficient grace, then your columnist’s taste of ‘action’ amounts to precisely nada.

The closest I ever came was waiting for the cloak room in Nottingham Rock City after a rather intense Bloc Party concert. So tightly packed was the meagre hallway of the great venue that I and all the other sweaty, coatless fools were swarming with all the discipline of a fat midriff jiving to ‘Crazy In Love’… no one knew where to go or who was next, which is what brought about my almost-fight.

I made a surge forward for the desk and felt a voice on my neck.

‘Oi, I’m next mate!’ the enemy spat.

‘Are ya fuck – I’ve been here for ages!’ I snarled in return.

‘You wanker!’

‘Fuck you!’

We glared at one another, faces almost touching, teeth beared… problem was, due to the density of the crowd, neither of us could actually move our arms, which were pinned to our sides, nor move from the spot where we were standing, meaning we could only of sway slightly with the throb of the crowd.

After an angry exchange, only two things can happen – one of you either shoves or throws a punch at the other, or you disperse muttering to yourself, never to lock eyes again. Unfortunately for me and my equally weedy, side-partened buddy, neither was an option. Instead we had to just glare ahead, standing side by side like two bowling pins, impotents fixed glumly together as the world carried on.

After a minute or two, I looked at him, and he at me.

‘I’m actually not really hard enough to follow that up, mate.’ He said with what would have been a shrug.

‘Nah, nor am I. You go first.’ I replied, sucking in my stomach and nodding him past.

Outside in the cool night air we shared a hug, wished each other good night and went our separate ways with our nonplussed pals, all forgiven and nothing but warmth in our hearts.

Hence it seems with every passing year less and less likely that I’ll ever make that final step towards being a man and actually get lamped by somebody. And I'll be positively screwed if that sabre-toothed tiger ever shows up.