Why boys fight
As a child, my greatest fear was being beaten up. I grew up in the 80s. That was a time when getting beaten up was part of a boy's everyday life. Getting into fights, like being able to whistle on your fingers or drink alcohol, seemed to be an important step in the direction we all wanted to take: growing up. If you wanted to be an adult one day, if you wanted to become some kind of man, you would have to fight. My problem: I was afraid of it.
We were chained to this narrative of masculinity like dogs to their kennels and no teacher, no parent, no older sibling told us that hitting each other was a sign of immaturity and, yes, stupidity. We heard no such messages anywhere and probably wouldn't have believed them. And so we spent much of our childhood preparing ourselves for the inevitable. We swapped stories that drew their horror from the fact that we didn't know whether they were exaggerated or understated. At some point, we also guessed who it would be that we would have to fight.
In my case, two boys from the neighbourhood; not bad guys, kids, I would say today, but they had it in for me. I had already escaped them twice. One time on my bike, the other time on foot, at a speed that would have put me among the best in my year over 400 metres.
When they finally ambushed me in a little wood near the school, I was almost relieved that it was finally going to happen. The taller of the two said something, I didn't quite understand him and asked idiotically: «Excuse me?», whereupon he pushed me in the chest. I staggered back and wanted to run away. My upper body turned, but my legs stayed still. They were paralysed. Then, without warning, the other one punched me in the face.
It didn't particularly hurt, but the cold had tapped into a deep-seated anger inside me.
Being hit in the face is a very special experience: you see the blow coming but can't do anything. The impact is a loud, painless bang, followed by a strangely cold shiver that runs from the back of your neck down your back and into your legs. It didn't hurt much, and I didn't lose consciousness, but the cold had tapped into a deep-seated rage inside me. I raised my little fists and went at my attacker like a madman.
For a brief moment I thought I recognised something like confusion in his eyes, but then he dodged me, my punch slipped off his shoulder and he pulled me to the ground and kicked me twice in the stomach.
I stayed lying there for a while after they ran off. I cried, but I was okay. The next day I bragged about the incident. But today, 32 years later, I can still feel the cold shiver that ran down my spine and the fear that didn't get smaller afterwards, but bigger.You don't grow up when you hit yourself, you remain a child.
