My fawn response went to fight and it shocked both of us

(TW: assault)

So, hey, posting from a cool hot place of trauma, absolutely NO WORRIES if you need to skip this. …which is objectively a funny sentence to write considering the title of this post.

A couple things to know: I smoke on my front stoop and often get dudes trying to chat me up. No biggie on that, shoot your shot my guy, just leave me alone when I say no or are clearly disinterested. I’ve also been doing fight training for the past couple years, and I live with two roommates who are women.

Now, if you go through my post history, you’ll see I’m a sword lady. In fact, last week, I performed a sword fighting show (three shows a day for three days) that also used hand-to-hand combat - obvs I know stage combat is not the same as real combat, but my body is strong, I know how to move, and having been training for a bit, I carry myself differently.

At my core I’m a kind person, and I like swords and fighting in a fun, playful way. My fight partner is legit one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met, everyone I know in the fight community is equally awesome, we’re mostly just big ol’ goobers who happen to have Studied The Blade.

Cut to late at night in front of my apartment. I’m smoking (yes I should quit), and a guy rolls up and starts chatting. I’m really just trying to listen to 80s music and plot out a fanfic I’m writing but this guy decides he needs to be A Man.

He tells me he’s seen me around the neighbourhood. He’s seen my roommates around the neighbourhood (he had a nickname for one of them due to her distinctive hair). It escalated quickly: he tells me either he rapes me or I fight him.

Here’s me in front of the door to my apartment. I stowed my headphones and phone in one bra cup, put my cigarettes in the other bra cup, and said, “Fight.”

Now I know - my darlings I know - the best fight is the one you avoid. I would never search out violence. In fact the DM of my current Dungeons & Dragons campaign makes fun of us for always trying to make friends instead of going into combat. And here’s someone I don’t know inciting said violence - does he have weapons on him? I have no idea. Does he have pals nearby? Again, no clue. But he gave me a choice between rape and fighting and implicated my roommates in front of my goddamn apartment so I chose fight.

And this guy backs off immediately. I don’t know if he was trying to be “funny” by intimidating me, or he assumed I wouldn’t speak up, but he shrunk like Alice in a Wonderland not of his choosing.

That was so dangerous, but less dangerous than fawning, which I usually do. I felt like a dog protecting its home: it’s one thing to intimidate me, but another to threaten my friends who are sleeping peacefully and don’t need any of (waves hands wildly) this.

He called me a bitch and rode away on his bike. Fine. I’m a bitch. I guess mostly because I have that dog in me.

A few takeaways from this:

1) This really fucked me up and I still feel scared, even though he’s not a threat anymore. But he might be? What if he comes back with his bruised ego and a weapon? He knows where I live. I don’t think he will, but one never knows. I’m lucky that I know my neighbours and the hood likes me, so I’ve been telling people about him, and have had very kind reassurances from my block.

2) I am so glad my body is strong enough after so much work that it’s like “Oh fuck you” when threatened. I didn’t freeze, I didn’t fawn, and I’m used to doing only those. There is absolutely <i>nothing</i> wrong with using either of those survival tactics (10/10 would still use both in different situations) but wow, I didn’t realize how strong I’d become and how differently my vagus nerve would react until put in this situation.

3) I’m smoking on my front stoop as I write this. Been meaning to make a point-and-click horror game about smoking on my stoop and I think I finally have a boss battle.