Edit: the title is supposed to be "Mutual understanding between men is always stronger with **OVERT conversation after tension between the respective men."

After reading Don't touch men by Ketogainsmongoose, I couldn't resist but sharing this story with you guys.

Before continuing with the story, I've not been raised to be a solid man in my youth. I was picked on, declared "too nice", was somewhat of a pussy when it came to confrontations (despite being overwhelmingly popular in my social circles). I had my ass stomped in front of my mother when I was 6 and didn't even care to fight back for myself. My mother cried out "You should be a man and stand up for yourself next time!" Looking back at her comment, it's no wonder I got my ass stomped and didn't even stand up for myself. Neither my father nor my mother raised me to do so. They always shut me down to the point of crying my ass off when I raised questions or even made a comment when they were mad. It honestly makes me laugh to look back at all of this.

Fast forward to now: I am 24. 2 years in Savate Kickboxing (twice a week). I train as Advanced for an hour 30 minutes, then train the beginners for another hour and 30 minutes. I am extremely self-confident in myself, my strength and my genuine ability to fuck someone up.

Anyways, to the story. 2 Saturday's ago, my cousin and I go to my friend's house party. It was in an area riddled with young students and professional workers. Most of the people that came were beautiful, young women. Even though I am dating, I don't hesitate to exercise game (with boundaries) when need be. Light playing, Funny and Cocky, DGAF dancing and talking to whoever I wanted to talk to when I wanted to talk to. It feels really good to have options and still CHOOSE to be committed, and this made me feel really comfortable in my frame at the party.

Anyways, there was another dude (let's call him Leonel) at this party. He's well dressed, good build and gaming other women with a high rate of success. Mind you, this party was riddled with AFCs who are passive in their "seduction" towards women, so anyone who even displays a fucking 0.1 gram of testosterone will score. In spite of this, I still have no doubt that this dude has solid game regardless of the situation.

He came out of the bathroom with this chick and it's obvious that they hooked up. Walking around with his frame all over the place, he decided to pick on my cousin. Walking up to him, he grabs his beard and says "nice beard, man."

My cousin looks at him and says "Do not touch my beard." That is the expected reaction of my cousin, who even gives me the eye of rage when I fuck around with his beard (it is the length of King Leonidas' beard from 300).

Having his balls slightly broken due to my cousin's reaction, Leonel laughs it off and chats up my cousin for a bit. Then, again, he touches my cousin's beard. My cousin grabs his wrist with incredible strength at this point and that's when I notice the tension. I paid attention to my anger not to go too loud, so all I did was stand behind my cousin and look Leonel in the eyes of determined, fixed rage of a predator. Leonel notices this, let's go of my cousin's hand, and then approaches his hand to shake mine. I responded with a "hmph", shook back, and walked away.

Me and my cousin then walk to the side and he tells me of the conflict that happened. I laughed out loud and saw Leonel in the corner of my eye noticing this. Obviously, Leonel gets enraged (he was with his 6 friends and they too know of the conflict that just happened). What does Leonel do? Passive aggression. He would walk by me, step on my foot and say "Oops. Sorry about that (fake, shit-eating grin)."

I looked at him, head-to-toe, and gave him the facial expression of "what are you even doing, man?" His gang of men, for 20 minutes straight, were reigning "supreme" with their passive-aggressive fury of toe-stepping. It was hilarious. I just continued dancing and talking.

I figured that Leonel was a good guy and that this was all just a misunderstanding, at one point. So, I approached him with genuine intent to get to know him better. He was in the middle of his frame and all of his homies were listening. I told him, "hey man, let's go out for a cigarette, you and I. Man-to-man."

His eyes were shaking. My god. It was hilarious. His frame immediately broke and he said: "Nah, I don't smoke." So I said, "that's all good. I'll smoke a cigarette and we can have a nice little conversation." He denied it again, and then, in front of all his friends, apologized to my cousin. Which I respected.

Last Saturday, two days ago, I saw Leonel again at the party. This time, we immediately hit it off and bonded with genuine, solid conversation. No more passive aggression, just a pure, intellectual, and a mutually understanding dialogue between him and I. The party ended at 5 AM, to which Leonel said to me and my cousin: "Yo, you guys want to leave together?" He ended up smoking a J at my place and we conversed until sunrise.

Two beautiful things happened from this conversation:

  • He was telling us how he was glad to have met us. He even sounded genuinely glad to have so, as most of the people in that party (and in his circle) were lesser men + AFCs. What I am about to say has no basis, but I swear I saw in his eyes that our altercation and 2 hours of conversations were more genuine than what he shares with his friends.

  • Turns out that he sells hand-made Italian suits. He's going to hook me up with a solid price next time I come in.

Remember this, men. Walk loudly with your eyes, but keep a polite and chill mouth. My coach always told me, that show with your eyes that you will rip a man limb to limb, but always diffuse the situation with your mouth. This ALWAYS throws a man off-guard. Always. Not only that but if you win a frame battle with a fellow stranger, you can become great allies if you choose so. This works more wonders than constant tension and fake atmospheres.