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You’ve seen Fight Club, I’m sure. You saw average guys, who work fruitless jobs engage in senseless acts of rage—sans anger—for the gratification of feeling like… well, like men. They beat each other stupid for what must be the combative equivalent of the “orgasm grunt”.

Tyler Durden wasn’t Rocky Balboa. He wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Jean-Claude Van Dam (Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Steven Segal, Steve McQueen, Vin Diesel, the list goes on and on. Point is: he was none of them) in any of their mindlessly awesome roles in frivolous films. He wasn’t trained in boxing, Ju-jitsu or even Capoeira .

Although lots of guys would love to have Brad Pitt’s physique in Fight Club—presumably also in Troy—no one would really argue that he is a big dude. Certainly not one of those Muscle Beach doggies that goes into a gym with the intention of working out bi’s, tri’s and childhood issues. He looked like what the average guy is probably supposed to look like: definition, but not bulk and thin, but not skinny. I have no documentary evidence, but that seems like what the world looked like before the proliferation of KFC, tasty, tasty MSGs and other such three lettered acronyms. Chicks still swoon, but IFBB guys would have a chuckle at his expense using adjectives like “puny” and “girly” followed by ironic nouns such as “man” or “boy” (how’re those withered testes servin’ you, boys? Yeah, I bet you’re real tough now. Fuckin’ IFBB guys!)

Tyler Durden was no hero. He wasn’t trying to save the world, a girl or hostages from an evil mastermind, deranged psycho or natural disaster. He was an average guy engaged in frustrated, hyper-average violence for its own sake. And the appeal to other average guys was almost universal.

“Hey, I have a shitty job.”
“Hey, my boredom drives me to drink.”

…they seemed to say. Truth is, many average guys were, and are, troubled and disenfranchised for, ostensibly, no reason at all. Fight Club prescribed that instead of taking the increasingly conventional route (which I personally feel is the fruit of seeds planted by the Feminist movement) of seeking therapy and talking out their problems, they took what would probably now be called the “Caveman approach” and beat their problems out of each other.

This idea took flight. If you’re anywhere in your twenties, you probably know guys who, immediately after watching this movie, went straight to their backyards, garages and basements to beat the hell out of each other. It would be foolish to assume that these friendly inflictions of bodily harm didn’t exist prior—backyard amateur wrestling leagues plagued youth culture through the mid ‘90’s—but Fight Club seemed to inspire young men to act on their frustration with rage rather than identify their problems and work them out with months of expensive therapy. You have a problem too? Good. You punch me and I’ll punch you and we’ll both feel better.

We’re not talking thugs and slack-jaws. We’re talking smart, young guys, full of “potential” (whatever that is) living average, comfortable lives. I shied away from actual violence for fear of getting hurt or, worse, in trouble, but I always wished I had. Boys have fought amongst each other since they were invented in 1831, but somehow this was different. No one was “dissed”, no fight was provoked by anger, no honor lost which needed to be regained. No, this is different. These guys fought their friends. They would bleed and make bleed, bruise and make bruise, but they were still friends. Fault for any broken bone or dislodged tooth was assigned to chance, not your buddy. After it was all said and done, you slapped hands, hugged and placed the cold beer your assailant/victim/buddy handed you over your swelling eye. And things felt right.

I call my abstinence from this activity ‘fear’ now, but I used to call the phenomenon stupid. I didn’t want to get hurt much more than I didn’t want to hurt anyone of my friends, but, oh, what it would have been like to playfully strike someone just a little bit more than playfully. I discovered my own desire for stoic violence in college when I’d find myself sizing up every guy at the mall that looked to be a fair match. I cut in lines in front of them, blatantly stared at their girlfriends and rolled my eyes when they protested. I was begging for a direct blow to the face, for someone to beat my frustration out of me. I wanted to test my reaction, my character and show myself how big my balls really were (in any event, much larger than those IFBB guys).

Nope. Nothin’. I found that the guy who goes to the mall with his girlfriend is generally about as non-confrontational as they come.

SIDEBAR:
There’s an interesting, yet so very ill-conceived notion among guys that if an attractive girl has a boyfriend, our ability to… ahem… “take him” will immediately—as though we were lions, gorillas or manatees—woo her to kiss us with tongues over her boyfriend’s pitiful, decimated body. Kinda laughable. I defy anyone to cite an example of this actually working since the whole Paris/Menelaus thing occurred in 1965. Anyone? Anyone? Hmm…

I took boxing as a PE class and later joined the boxing club at school in an effort to focus that violent energy into something… ummm… athletic. But, there was something missing. It seemed to have the right idea: fighting at random with no anger. Problem was, boxing has a point. You want to show good form and be better than the other guy. Plus, there’s all kinds of padding and a referee. So it was sport, not therapy. That’s different. If anything, boxing was the proverbial dry-hump of my quest for unmitigated violence.

Very recently (three and a half years after starting this foolishness), I got into the first fight of my life. Walking out of a bar in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in DC, a fat, drunk Puerto Rican guy was staring at and talking loudly to his friend about a girl in my group. That’s normally not a provocative act; we were crossing the street and I knew it to be stupid, so I wasn’t particularly incensed. My face must not have said as much because when I inadvertently made eye contact he said:

“Y tu, puto… mierda?”

Editorial translation from Spanish to the most direct English possible:
“And you, (masculine form of) whore… shit?”

I walked back towards him and asked him why, precisely, it was necessary to have said anything at all. Yeah, I’m a rookie. At this point, while I take responsibility for my actions, it’s hard to say that I had any control over what my body did, because it all seems so instinctual. He outstretched his arms and inflated his chest. I outstretched my arms and inflated my chest. Our inflated chests (mine was more bulging and rippled with muscles… or at least that’s what my memory of the event suggests) touched and he said… well, what you say just before most fights start: “Well, what’re you gonna do?”

Ummmm…..

The only thing that occurred to me, having grown up the literary, pseudo-intellectual type was to respond with a rhetorical question: “What can’t I do to you?”

Newby… table for one, please. It’s important to note that the flare for the dramatic that my question evoked was completely lost on my chubby, Puerto Rican friend.

He did what, I guess, you’re supposed to do next and shoved me (proving his lack of appreciation for what I thought was a well-worded response). I shoved him. He drew his fist back and let it fly towards my head.

SIDEBAR:
In numerous discussions concerning the theoretical street fight I would get in prior to this moment, I’d always postulated that the other guy would swing wide, I’d duck under his mighty blow and deliver something devastating right to his ribs.

His fist landed just to the left of the center of my forehead. I then found my own fist right under his left eye. Who knew? I was a scrapper. He stumbled back just long enough for my friend and his friend to get between us. At this point, his nose was bleeding something glorious and I wanted to run right the hell out of there while I was still victorious (and non-detained by the authority figure). Random blows were exchanged, but that was the climax of my first fight.

I take that back. The climax came when in the graspy-pushy-shovey match that followed, Lindsey (the girl who’s honor I was defending… apparently) landed a loud, fleshy punch right to the fat guy’s face. Everyone stopped for just a moment to absorb what just happened. The fat guy’s friend actually seemed somewhat impressed. I was yelling platitudes at the friend who was effectively stopping me from throwing any more punches: “Let me go, man, you don’t know me!” As if somehow I expected him to realize that, in fact, we had never met and then immediately release me.

And that was that. My first fight. We weren’t even completely across the street before I was absolutely free of any rage and felt awesome. The soreness on my face—which was nothing compared to the swollen, bloody face of the other guy—was sadistically gratifying. And the thought that someone had “dissed” me and I “lef’ dat fool messed up” was oddly liberating.

I’m a normal guy. I’m not angry, I wasn’t drunk and I’m grateful to Chubs for the opportunity to answer questions about my balls and release some of that frivolous, inexplicable frustration. Thanks, Chubs. Is this wrong? Am I a thuggish brute? Did I violate any social contract?

No. Fresh from this experience, I truly feel it’s healthy for normal dudes to occasionally indulge their aggressive urges. If reasonable, consenting guys maintain some sense of restraint (with respect to how much damage they can do without necessitating the word “permanent”) they should be able to beat the hell out of each other. I accomplished in a minute and a half what probably would have taken nine months and many hundreds of dollars of therapy. I don’t need to get in touch with my feminine side, I’ll settle for another dude’s face. Hmmm… perhaps a little sociopathic. Yeah. I’m okay with that.

That’s all.