William: The closest thing I ever had to a real fight was when I was having a heated philosophical argument with a nerd and it got physical and he kicked me in the nuts (yeah, real gentlemanly of him, right?), and I retaliated likewise. The fight didn’t go anywhere from there. I think we may have both sat down to recover, and weren’t in a fighting mood after that. And I think most guys harbor secret wishes of wanting to get into a fight, just so they can prove how tough they are. It’s part of the male psyche. It’s the reason UFC is so popular: it touches on those exact same male fantasies. Of course, my conscious mind has a huge list of good reasons why it’s best not to get into a fight despite how “cool” it may seem, and so far, my conscious mind has always won.

Drinian: Yeah, the story is very funny now, to me as well as to others. I made my peace with it awhile ago, kind of in a “if you can’t laugh at it you’ll cry” mindset. Isn’t it funny how if you see one person naked, they’re the one who’s embarrassed, but if you see dozens of people naked, you’re the one who’s by far the most embarrassed? And yeah, the most embarrassing part of your story is that you supported Bush, not that you misread your line :-P

So here’s a story that hasn’t been told in public before, although there’s probably about a hundred people or more who still remember it. It’s embarassing for a couple of reasons, not least among which was my adolescent support for the future President Bush during the 2000 election.

As a known conservative and occasional Republican, I was asked to give a short speech to the whole upper school in support of Bush. Other students were speaking for Gore and Nader. (For the record, I am eternally grateful to my school for teaching public speaking and rhetoric). I had of course written out the speech the night before, and practiced it to death, but I was still rather nervous when I got up, and began to skip over words extemporaneously.

The first line out was a comment on the Nader speaker, who had gone before and was remarkably passionate about workers’ solidarity or some such thing. “I’m not sure how I can top that, but…” The next line, my written opener, was written down like so: “I would like to ask you what comes to mind when you hear the name George W. Bush.” However, this got changed as I read it into “I’d like to ask you the first thing you think of when you hear the word Bush.”

I went to an all-boys’ school, and of course there was only one place for their minds to go. In a panic (since, looking at my original writeup, it didn’t occur to me what was so funny) I just waited a few minutes until everyone was done laughing, and continued with my speech. That one stayed with me for a while. You have to admit, though, it was pretty funny.

The first one I recall, my friend was getting beaten up by an older kid. I snuck off about ten feet, got a good run going, and hit the kid in the stomach as hard as I could. It knocked him away from my friend and down a small slope into a chickenwire fence. This was in 2nd grade.
The next scuffle was another big-kid-beating-up-my-friend thing. Didn’t have to do anything, just made my presence known and the guy backed off. Helped my buddy up off the ground and it was all pretty much okay. This was in 4th grade.
The last one I can remember from my obligatory school days was in 8th or 9th grade, and is even less impressive than the others. I was sitting on the bottom row of bleachers with the friend from the previous one (Hank) and someone I knew but wasn’t really friends with (Matt) walks by and slaps me, then Hank. A few minutes later, he comes back and slaps Hank, and almost gets to me. I did… something, at the end of which he was lying face-down on the floor and I was standing above him, holding his arm up with my foot on his shoulder.
Anyway, it was an accident, and he was crying, so I helped him up, and we both said we were fine when the teacher asked what was going on.

I’ve always secretly wanted to get into a fistfight, just to see what it’s like. To see how I would fare, too, I think. To just have done it.
I know consciously that this is stupid, but it’s a subconscious thing that I haven’t been able to get rid of in ten years.

And I recall riding the bus in 6th grade with one of my good friends. I don’t remember what kind of dumb shit was going on, but at some point he had leaned his head back and his eyes closed and I went to pinch his nose shut to prevent breathilization. Naturally, one of the “cool” kids saw it and proclaimed loudly that I was trying to pick his nose, which I suppose it may have appeared. That one, of course, didn’t go away, and luckily enough, all the cool kids decided the front of the bus was cool that year rather than the back, so I had to walk by them to get to the back every day.

And I recall in some grade one of those bully types asking me if I liked boobs during gym. I don’t remember exactly what I said, I think it was something along the lines of, “What do you think?” in a sarcastic manner. But whatever the case, he misheard me, perhaps purposefully, and for the rest of the year he randomly and loudly proclaimed I was gay or the guy who didn’t like boobs or some other shit like that.

Public school kicks ass. D:

I’m racking my brain but I don’t think I ever really had that one defining embarrassing moment. I’d probably remember it clear as the day it happened if I had. I think I just had a lot of random annoyances. I also never got in a fight during school, and I’m still fightless to this day. I think most guys get in at least one but it never happened to me.