Have you ever been in a physical fight as an adult?

Someone tried to steal my wallet at a rave about a decade ago. I had deep pockets and stopped them as soon as I felt a hand. Turned around to confront them - looked at them and shook my head no. Apparently this was challenging his masculinity or something because he squared up in front of me and I didn't back down. After a quick glance back at his friends he sucker punched me, which knocked my glasses off. The guy was a few inches shorter and probably 40lbs lighter than me so while it stung, it wasn't a serious blow. I calmly grabbed my glasses off the floor, put them on, then turned around only to find he and his crew had fled the scene. I went and talked to security to let them know what happened and to keep an eye out for them as they are likely trying to steal from people.

I'm a pacifist. I wouldn't have fought this person. To be clear, I personally believe in non-violent tactics because I don't want to be a person who resorts to violence. I think this is because I inherently do not value my own life. I'm not trying to get killed, or to be the victim of violence, but I think there's something powerful about refusing to perpetuate the cycle and that tenet is more important to me than my own safety.

I actually had an incident just last month, the first I can think of in my adult life.

My friend and I were leaving a restaurant and unlocking our bikes to ride back home. A man approached us asking for food or money. We had neither, and he became very agitated when we told him we didn't. My friend (B) had unlocked his bike first, I was still working on mine. The man yelled and insulted B, and while B kept walking backwards keeping his bike between them, the man kept shuffling forward and winding up, only to miss his punches with the bike in the way. Once my bike was unlocked B and I took off down the street faster than the man could give chase.

We ended up having an interesting conversation about it afterwards. Both of us would probably consider ourselves pacifists, and neither of us made any attempt to strike the man despite his attempts to hit us. However, B did return some of the man's insults, and told me he regretted that. In the moment when you think someone is trying to hurt you, adrenaline kicks in changes the way you act. I like to think that I would have been as smart as my friend were our positions swapped. However, I am much larger than my friend, and I'm afraid that if the man had actually struck my friend I would have escalated the situation in anger. It would definitely be a bad idea, and the man was obviously in crisis, needed help, and probably had more experience fighting than both of us combined. Additionally, you never know what will happen when you throw a punch. Someone could fall and bounce their head on the concrete, land wrong and snap their neck, or someone could pull out a weapon and escalate things more. It never ends well.

Which is a long way to say that, in reflection on the interaction I regret that I didn't try to talk the man down, I regret that I didn't unlock my bike faster so my friend wouldn't have to get punched at, and I regret that I let adrenaline change the way I thought even if it didn't lead to action this time. It also made me think more about how one could train themselves to act under the affect of adrenaline. It's something I'd like to look into more.

I asked a guy smoking right in front of a bank's door to stop smoking there, and he punched me in the face for it, and then ran. I couldn't catch him, so that was that. I don't regret it, except that I might have benefited from taking his photo first, so that I could've had some evidence for the cops.