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Let me tell you a story. Then I will describe my motives and I will humbly ask for opinions. Who knows, I might even improve my deplorable character.
Last Friday my daughter, she’s 14 years old, called me and said she and a friend want to go to the movies in the mall. I had no objections, I just asked her to come to my job and in the evening I’d accompany her there. So she came and at the end of my shift I said “Let’s go, we gotta get the bus.”
“Why the bus, why don’t you have your car?”
“I didn’t know we’re going to the mall so I came with the bike, let's just go.”
So we got in the bus, it’s not a particularly long ride, we were just standing there, quiet like covered pipkins, minding our own business and all that good stuff.
Now, let’s introduce the other party to the story, it was a man, visibly in his fifties. He was sitting close to us while me and my daughter were just standing and chatting. Then the man loudly addressed the woman sitting next to him and said something like “Miss, this country got ruined by the gender people, don’t you think?”
In Bulgaria homophobes broadly call gays and gay right supporters “gender people”, I don’t know why, I never cared to delve into their terminology. Anyway, moving on. The lady just ignored him, maybe she was intimidated, who knows, right? A random man spitting his agenda on the bus while being in close proximity to a woman isn’t exactly a fine situation. Yet she ignored him and he went silent. I was pretty peeved even at that but I said nothing, he didn’t address me or my child after all. I was thinking like “I hope this retard doesn’t say something to me, I hope we get off the bus before him.” Yet my hopes were dashed rather quickly for he got up and approached the exit for the next stop. And of course while still on the bus he had to turn to me and say “You seem like nice people there, you and your child but the gender people have no morals and they ruined the country.”
This surpassed my threshold for tolerance so I responded. “It’s really funny when the drunken scum teaches others about morals, don’t you think.” He reacted when he got off the bus, maybe it took him some time to register my meaning, I don’t know. The thing is he turned and angrily started swearing at me with their usual repertoire of profanities. I told him to shut the f*ck up and move on if he doesn’t want to have his teeth beaten out. My daughter also interfered, she told him not to speak to me like that, the sweet child. Anyway, then this man got on the bus again and raised his hands in some semblance of a boxing guard. Then he made a step towards me. And I thought “There’s no way I will stand for this crap.” Now, I’m a somewhat decent fighter in Muay Thai and I don’t say it lightly, I’ve done my fair share of training hours and sparring and some competitions, I’ve been beaten pretty badly, injured, you know the drill. Yet up until now I’ve never been in a situation that’s outside the gym and one where I have to react. So I just did what I do best, I made my step and I push kicked him in the gut, it’s called teep in Muay Thai and it differs from kickbox push kick but I don’t mean to bore you with technicalities. The point is I curled him then and there, he stumbled back and more like slipped rather than fell from the bus but obviously wasn’t badly hurt for once outside he told me to go f*ck my mother which I actually found rather amusing.
Then the bus driver took action and yelled “We’re moving!” So we moved and that was that.
Then here’s the ethical side, I later got myself thinking “Did I use excessive force? Could I’ve deescalated this verbally?” Weighing the situation, I obviously did what I did and I need to accept consequences, if any. It’s obviously unlawful to quarrel and fight, even in the cesspool that is Bulgaria. Yet I don’t think I did wrong. Thinking about it, the turning point was when he made the boxing stance and stepped towards me. Had he not done that, I wouldn’t have moved at him at all. Even after I saw his stupid stance I didn’t feel threatened for my safety, as I said I’ve been beaten badly, it’s not a huge deal but I instantly thought about my child there so I acted on the thought of her safety. There was the scenario where I somehow got hurt and this moron turns against her. Had I been alone, maybe I would’ve tried to reason with the man, although that seems like such a long shot and I think I would’ve been annoyed and we would’ve still ended up fighting.
To conclude, I’m not proud of how this situation developed, nor from my reactions, yet I still think that my actions, if definitely unsafe, were at least expedient. However I’d like opinions and I will be grateful for them. Please, excuse any punctuation errors.
Thank you for reading.
 
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You most definitely used excessive force and assaulted the man.
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Let stupid people talk stupid shit and move on.
In my opinion you escalated the situation on multiple occasions.
First you got verbally personal while he was just talking general stupid shit
Then you threatened him with violence while he was just talking personal stupid shit back at you
Then you got physical while he was just threatening you back
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Certified Bulgarian post, I rate 5 stars.
Being completely ignorant, isn't there some unwritten rule by martial artists that you should refrain using your skills unless there's real threat to your person? And even then.
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Bisutopia19139 Posts
On January 10 2024 00:46 Nirli wrote:
Certified Bulgarian post, I rate 5 stars.
Being completely ignorant, isn't there some unwritten rule by martial artists that you should refrain using your skills unless there's real threat to your person? And even then.
In the US you are considered a deadly weapon if you are a professional fighter and can be accused of Assault With a Deadly weapon for hitting someone.
OT: As someone with children, I'd never escalate a situation where there could be potential harm to my kids. No fight or cause is worth putting them at risk. While that guy may have an idiot, he didn't actually do anything wrong. We all have a responsibility to educate first with our words and not our bodies. He may one day look back at his younger self with regret and growth, but only if we have the wisdom to treat him with a level of respect that any "gender" person is capable of having.
Edit: To be clear, in my heart I'm right there with you though! :D
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Yeah I'm in agreement with everyone else: The old man was a bigoted moron, but you overstepped by physically escalating the situation, and it wasn't setting a good example for your child.
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Netherlands4651 Posts
You didn´t have to insult him to let him know you disagree and he most likely wouldn´t come back on the bus.
Given he came back on the bus with a fighting stance and you had no more room to back off first and re-estimate the situation, cause he might be in striking range of your daughter, then I feel like your push kick was reasonable to solve it quickly.
"Did I use excessive force?" If you need to ask yourself this, then the answer is most probably yes. Everyone makes mistakes tho. Old man didn't suffer serious injury. You're in luck. He probably learned a lesson, as did you.
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You were with a child, the man was giving clear signals of aggression, and there's a non-zero chance that the man directs that aggression toward your child, so I'm inclined to think that your actions were fine.
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When I was 14 my friends and I went to the Mall on our own. We went to movies on our own. If someone went to the movies with their parents around we laughed at them.
When we were 16 we all got cars. No car... no gf. We loved SC64 and Starcraft, but none of us was very good at it. Too busy saving up to buy a car. 
It was 6 months before any one in our little gang got past "The Hammer Falls" in the SC1 campaign.
Good Times.
On January 10 2024 00:05 Harris1st wrote:
Let stupid people talk stupid shit and move on.
In my opinion you escalated the situation on multiple occasions.
First you got verbally personal while he was just talking general stupid shit
Then you threatened him with violence while he was just talking personal stupid shit back at you
Then you got physical while he was just threatening you back
+1, 100% agree.
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if i got baited into a physical altercation that easily in front of my daughter id be ashamed and embarrassed. do you think you were being a good role model to your daughter with that display?
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You escalated. The guy clearly wanted someone to respond and if they didn't he let them be. By insulting him as an answer you escalated the situation. For the kick, I don't know, one would need to be there to see if the thing was going to escalate to a fight.
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On January 10 2024 16:32 Puosu wrote:
You were with a child, the man was giving clear signals of aggression, and there's a non-zero chance that the man directs that aggression toward your child, so I'm inclined to think that your actions were fine.
That was the OP. The OP's aggression is what could endanger their child. The homophobic man called the OP a "nice person" - no aggression towards the OP, although not excusing the homophobic words the man said aloud in general - and then the OP flipped out verbally and then physically.
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The internet is great at scolding people , "banning people for life" , identifying minor forms of sexual misconduct and calling them out very loudly etc etc.
Everyone has done a great job telling you how wrong you are and how badly you fucked up.
The internet ain't so good at personal development. That's the tough part. How can you improve?
This is a minor screw up. Fortunately, nothing seriously bad happened. The chance of a serious injury in this incident was probably very low any way.
I agree with most of the analysis of the responders in this thread. You have been very honest and transparent in your outline of the event. You deserve some credit for that. The question now becomes: what do you do in the future?
I suggest some relaxation routines when you awaken and breathing techniques you can use throughout the day. The few seconds when the old guy was talking weird you may have processed these events differently if you were in a deeper state of calm and relaxation.
Yoga is fantastic. The purpose of Yoga isn't just to lower your heart rate while sitting alone in a quiet room. Yoga's purpose is to bring relaxed breathing, lower pulse rate, while activating your parasympathetic nervous system every hour of the day. Also, all of these things improve longevity.
I'm a big user and proponent of Eli Bay's "Relaxation Response" Methods.
https://www.elibay.com/
When you breathe as if you are relaxed ... you start to become relaxed.
Hopefully, in the future you can respond in a more calm and measured manner.
Thanks for creating this blog post.
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Im guessing this happened in Sofia? Big cities usually have more people that have broken spirits and just wander around not making much sense.
The thing about the people acting out in public is you never know if they are soft-crazy or crazy-crazy if you know what I mean. Does he (or she) have a knife/gun? This guy obviously gave the two of you a compliment in his own kind of way, saying you were not what he thought was bad... And you called him scum.
Again, these people are down on their luck and not mentally well because of some of the things they have gone through in life. I'm not saying you should have said 'yeah, those gender people right?', and gone on with your life... but why call someone who is obviously not that ok scum? With or without your child there?
I mean think about it. What if he fell in a wrong way from the bus when you kicked him? Now hes in a coma or much worse, dead, and you are arrested because a drunk bum said you didnt look gay.
At the end of the day you were there and know best about what happened, things happen quickly before we can process whats going on but let this be a lesson for the future. There is a saying in Serbia 'pametniji popusta', google would translate it as 'better to bend than break' or 'the wiser head gives in'. As frustrating as it is, the idiots are not worth it. The less you have to do with them the better
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Here it's self defense starting from the second hit (attempt?). If you are trained you generally don't want to be seen applying it, if your opponent is twice your size it's probably justified. But if you can run away it never is.
Just remember that contrary to action movies, killing someone with a punch unintentionally is absolutely possible. Happened at a wedding in Austria a while ago.
On the other hand, if your stuff gets stolen and you report it first, then retrieve it on your own without harming anyone when they don't do anything, you might get kicked out of your own house when living in Austria. (That was kinda the beginning of my temporary villain era)
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Northern Ireland23252 Posts
I mean how much was instinctive man?
In complete opposition to almost all of my other beliefs, sometimes getting fucking punched for something is a good life lesson.
I’ve never been beaten up for being a bigot, mostly for being an arrogant arsehole, and generally deserved it. Of various misfortunes that have befallen me in life honestly a broken nose in one instance and a concussion in another were pretty minor. Shrug em off
I’m not a huge believer in ‘it’s just words’, if you’re running around openly dehumanising other people, even in a low level you’re contributing to a worsening of those people’s conditions.
Luckily I didn’t get beat up initially but I recall, a day after a friend had committed suicide there was a guy in the next table over who was commenting on a suicide story of a celebrity in very negative terms, only to be presented with a very angry yours truly.
Actually turns out his mates weren’t exactly digging that line and after diffusion I got invited over and a bunch of us angry males spilled our guts about mental health, and hey we had a learning experience.
This isn’t remotely advocacy for punching everyone you disagree with at all. I can’t stress that enough, but ‘civility’ is too frequently a cloak those who are anything but wear
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Although it no doubt involves some cognitive dissonance, I do believe some things need to be resolved outside of the legal system we live in. Him returning to the bus and going towards you was in clear intent to escalate, and in that situation some force might have been required. Now, it does sound like you overdid it, but measuring strength in these situations is obviously complicated, and it doesnt sound like he was permanently hurt
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EPT
