Have you picked a fight? Why?

About 10 years ago, my then boyfriend was walking in town with his ex. So I met them further up and well, picked a fight. I’m pretty good when angry.

I dont really argue too much….. I tend to go straight from ‘cool as a cucumber’ to ‘volcanic eruption’ in the blink of an eye. If I argue its a deliberate thing in which case I always win.

I used to do it all the time. The feel of fists on flesh and flowing blood and adrenaline satisfies a primal urge.

@wundayatta at this point in life, i run real fast away from any kind of drama! Had enough of that stuff….after all, what good does it do!

Bottomline, i’ve learned the hard way, just go with the flow!

You have to look at this through her eyes and I’m surprised that you didn’t. Here you have been off “gallivanting” on your trip, whatever it was (yes, it may have been all work and no play, and you may have come home exhausted and in need of disclosing all of your adventures and relaxing—but that’s not what she sees).

While you were gone on your adventure, life went on at home, and let me tell you, mister, it was no bed of roses!

Okay, so she was a bit out of line to unload on you as soon as you walked in the door, but you were just as out of line (if not more so, because you’re held to a higher standard—and after all, you were out gallivanting all that time, and you are who you are) to flash back at her.

You should apologize to her and admit that you were out of line. After you have things copacetic between the two of you again you can discuss (calmly, rationally, dispassionately) whatever the real issue might be with your son. Not that “he stays out late to learn blacksmithing” (I question how much ‘blacksmiting’ a 10-year-old is going to retain) but “he gets up late for school”. When that’s addressed adequately, no one is going to mind what happens on Saturday night.

And I’d love to hear all about your adventure when you have that all handled.

When I was a child, I was very angry. All I did was fight. I would punch a kid and feel bad about it and apologize.

That pretty much stopped when I hit puberty and thought, “acting like a douche bag won’t get you chicks”.

@boots Incorrect conclusion. I’ve seen many examples about how much women love men who act like complete a-holes. But cutting down on the d-bag act can make things go more smoothly after you attract someone.

I know a certain person who is so insecure that when he first meets a girl he likes, he immediately attempts to alienate her from her family and current friends. He averages about 8 girlfriends a year until he finds one nearly as insecure as him and then he treats her like crap and lies and cheats while they go on and off for a year. Then he’ll get a new girlfriend and talk about how the former girlfriend was the love of his life… to his new girlfriend. I’ve seen this pattern repeated about 6–7 times.

@Storms Oh, I know. I had very limited success, but the thing is that I was a violent douche bag. Going around fighting for no reason won’t impress anyone.

@Storms so @boots is correct in his assessment. Just because there are women who are not put off by violence does not make them the caliber of women with whom one would actually want to try and have a relationship.

@Trillian Personally, I have a soft spot for wounded birds. A woman who has her issues isn’t necessarily low-class or anything.

Not latley, but i feel one coming on.

@Storms Hmmm. Class wasn’t exactly what I was trying to intimate. I was more or less saying that women who are attracted to violent men have issues all their own and are likely to be ok when the violence is directed toward them. This in turn makes for an unhealthy dynamic in a relationship that is free of violence because of her hard-wired gravitational pull, so to speak, towards violence. A woman like this, IMO, would seek it out and would eventually dump a guy who was nice to her. I see questions about this here sometimes. Guys wonder why some girls throw them over for a man who treats her like crap. There are some serious underlying psychological issues in cases like this and the woman in question generally would benefit from some therapy. She is following a pattern that has been set for her, and though it is self destructive, she cannot help but follow it unless and until she gets some help to break that pattern.
@wundayatta, I apologize for going off track. I have started fights with my ex SO but they were generally due to my anger at him for choosing his addiction over me. I knew that it was pointless to fight about it but I would be so angry that he wasn’t giving me the life he promised me, or working towards the goals we had agreed upon that my reasoning powers went right out the window and I would engage in a futile, raised voices argument.

Everyone needs a good fight every once in a while. I admire couples that make a sort of game of it. They choose something that isn’t too serious and argue about it for a while, allowing themselves to get pissed off at each other just to vent. They then treat more serious conflicts with more sobriety. Playful physical aggression is also healthy.

Not that I’ve ever seen this work…

@Trillian I see what you’re saying. In a shift away from the topic of spousal abuse, there are still many people, men and women, who equate martial prowess or willingness to engage in combat with desirability. To determine whether that sort of thing is healthy, one must take into account the appropriateness of the forum… But many people do not bother with details like that. Or maybe that’s wrong and that’s just the behavior I’ve seen modeled in my experience.

When I was young I loved fighting, it was a rush. Even now I like to fight, I box, much safer than 2 kids slugging it out over pavement and curbs, but that is all physical aggression and boxing is a sport so it almost doesn’t count.

That’s the physical side, when it comes to heated arguments I am much the opposite. Mostly it depends on how emotional the argument gets, but I find in my more emotional arguments that I have a hard time getting my point across which in turn frustrates me and leaves me feeling upset instead of relieved. So when I find an argument or debate is getting into emotional territory I find that I do my best to keep it civil for fear I become a bumbling dolt.

I’ll only ever pick a fight I know I can win! :-/
“Never enter a battle of wits unarmed“ I can usually put someone down pretty quick if need be without having to resort to physical violence, failing that I back down from no man, “The bigger they are the harder they fall“! :-/

It was always because someone pissed me off.

Yes. When I was in my early twenties I lived in Paris. It was the most hostile and unforgiving environment I’ve ever had to endure, and I longed to leave but lacked the resources and the imagination to do so.

One day, I popped into a supermarche to buy a lemon. The lady at the scales wanted to put it into a plastic bag for me. I protested, and told her to just put the price label directly on the lemon. Who needs a bag for a single lemon? She insisted, saying it was supermarket policy to put all fruit and vegetables in a bag. I could feel my blood starting to boil.

Why? Why do I have to have a plastic bag for my single lemon?? WHY?
Supermarket policy, that’s why.

I stood there, flailing and muttering nonsense for a moment, at a loss as to what to do. I wanted my lemon. I did not want a plastic bag. I wanted a better explanation as to why supermarket policy was thus.

‘Would you like to speak with the manager?’, the lady asked.

I’ve never done anything like that before, but that manager really got it in the neck that day. For each and every snobby, snooty, abhorrent and despicable Parisian that had ever raised their arrogant eyebrows in my direction, that manager got it in the neck. (Plus I do think it’s ridiculous to have to put fresh produce in a plastic bag).

Disclaimer: I love France, have many French friends, and a mother who lives there. I adore and enjoy certain aspects of Parisian life.

With my words only.

Yes, today with my words. My partner let me use his car for a few hours so I decided to clean it up a bit. One out three bags of garbage into the project, I discovered a dress tie I’d bought him as a gift was bunched up in the hatch underneath a dust mop used for the outside of the car. It was crumpled and had gotten dirty so I was pissy he’d treat something I gave him special like it was just more garbage. What I really felt was a direct personal insult and unappreciated. Yeah I know, it’s just a farking tie and was tossed back there with no malicious intent. As I moved into gathered bag of garbage number two then I came across the Valentine’s Day money clip I’d bought him thrown into the armrest cache along with soda pop sticky change, crusty nibblets of french fries, tons of wrappers and… his ex wife’s wedding ring.

That did it! I was really pissed he was treating yet another gift to him from me like it was garbage. It had a penny stuck to it, dust and a french fry piece wedged in. The gizmo wasn’t cheap ($250.) and I had planned several months in advance to find just the right one so again, I felt directly insulted and unappreciated. The topper was I was most angry it was treated with the same neglect as the ex wife’s ring, I didn’t want my gift to be alongside things that reminded him of bad feelings (she was a lying cheater throughout their marriage and he was silly enough to ask her to marry him again after they divorced only to be cheated on again and left). I took all this as a personal slight against myself as though I was being compared to a lying whore and was no more important than she.

The finale was me saying some very mean thing about him sitting in his car and keeping her ring around so he could take it out on occasion and pine away after her while drinking mini hard liquor bottles.All this from a few items left in a car. Wow, what a day.

@Neizvestnaya Why don’t you drop this guy like a bad habit? Sounds like a nipple head to me.

@Neizvestnaya Crap…..... he really sucks!

@Trillian nipple head = most wonderful insult ever

Yes I have, I have picked a fight with my husband for the same reason you picked a fight with your wife. Because I wanted to be the center of attention and I wasn’t so I settled for the the justified asshole role. Pushed him until he snapped and then walked away with a self righteous chip on my shoulder.

I did with Rarebear once, because I was bored. He had me soundly beat by the the third exchange, but I just kept after it. Because I was bored. :))

@Neizvestnaya Man yeah….he really sounds like a loser. How long have you been dating? (Did you keep the ring and pawn it????!!!! I would have!!)

@jeanmay… Why didn’t you let her put the lemon in the bag, and after she handed you the bag, take the lemon OUT of the bag, and drop the bag on the checkout table!?

@Val123 It’s a separate weighing machine, not the checkout. So they weigh it, bag it and put a barcode sticker on the bag. That’s exactly what I do these days at the checkout: they put it in a bag and bleep it through then I take it right out again! But at the time I had grown tired of French bureaucracy and was having a poop year, so used it as an opportunity to vent. Plus I really do think that it’s a ridiculous and wasteful policy to put all veg in bags, and wanted to make my feelings as their customer known.

@jeanmay Good for you!!

@Val123
We’ve been together about a year and no, I didn’t pawn the ring because he’s never offered it to me- it’s his ex wife’s engagement ring and she beat it up somehow to where it’s not salvagable to offer to someone else. In his mind the gift was safe in his car and had no bearing on any other items in there. He is very messy with his car so he didn’t see the insult as I did. To him, he was tired and took off his tie after work one day and put it in the back seat where it became forgotten. Since the blowup though he has been much better with his care of stuff. Not drinking a bottle of booze everyday is good too.

I try not to pick fights with people, because I have this really ugly side to myself that can come out if I let it. I am very sharp-tongued, and I can flay someone verbally if I let myself get in this state. Fortunately, I’ve become really good at holding my tongue…the bad side is that sometimes I bottle stuff up inside instead of letting it out in a positive way.