Like, the last two? In bars/places that serve enough alcohol to count. My disability and chronic pain support group has a mini group of us that are also friends, and we sometimes like to go somewhere and kinda transition from the intense setting of a support meeting to decompress a little.

For some reason, one of my friends seems to draw trouble. One time, some asshole was giving him grief for being on a mobility scooter. Dude's spine is all messed up and it's visible, but this drunk fuck was giving him grief. My crippled ass may be crippled enough it hurts and I pay for it, but I didn't exactly forget the years of martial arts I trained with. So when the guy laid hands on my friend, that was it.

That was the last fracas I was involved in, and that was pre covid. No regrets. I do not allow people to fuck with my people, be it friends or family.

But, yeah, I've had a good bit of violence in my life, even after 30. Truth is that I don't mind meeting violence with violence. I wish it never happens, I don't want it, but I don't fear it. I was a bouncer in my twenties, at a gay/drag club, in the nineties in the south. Any fear of violence got literally beaten out of me back then.

It kinda means that I always see that violence is possible because I've seen how people can be. So, instead of allowing someone the chance to hurt someone that I can prevent being hurt, I have no barrier to acting before things get to the point where someone I care about is hurt at all. I'm willing to go after someone with full violence at the first sign they're willing to cross that line, instead of waiting until things progress to things that can cause injury.

Like the asshole that grabbed my friend's arm. Maybe he would have stopped there, but he had already shown willing to cross the line with a violent grab. Why should I assume someone doing that and obviously impaired by alcohol will stop there? No, I know what people can do, and I know that some people are just assholes willing to attack someone else with no actual need. I'm just asshole enough that I'm willing to use reasonable force to prevent it getting beyond that.

Mind you, it is reasonable force. Once the asshole is down or otherwise not continuing their attempt, I'm done. I got rid of that kind of adrenaline and anger driven retaliation a while back. There was a time I tended to go past the point the fight was over, and that's not cool. But I got past that shit with time and therapy.

Which, my fellow men, don't ever hesitate to do therapy. Life is brutal sometimes. You wouldn't ignore a broken leg, you'd get help fixing it. Don't ignore when things in your head need help working through. Ain't no shame in healing and growing as a person.