I've seen a lot of questions about dealing with other males on here lately. So this is another one of those that I'm trying to figure out.

I was at a dance club last night, solo. Not a club club but a show with dj's. My girls I talk to were working or busy but I didn't care and went anyway.

It was a sold out show and the place was almost unreasonably packed. Lotta people passing through the crowd. The girl next to me came right into my space when she had to make room/or was pushed. I then lightly touched her lower back to let her know she was in my space.

It went probably five seconds too long because she didn't move back to her spot.

Within 20 seconds later, I see outta corner of my eye this girl talk to her guy. He then asks me, with a shit eating tone, if I minded switching places with his friend to the right of me (they were on my left). Clearly the people weren't together. They didn't talk at any part that night, or latter when shit went down.

I then said "hey it's pretty tight quarters tonight so I'm gonna keep my spot". Then after a rebuttal "hey man I like my spot, I'm gonna keep it". Pretty matter of fact tone.

Really, my thoughts were I don't want my face closer to the blasting sub and I'm not gonna get told to move because his girl, or him, are insecure that I touched her. And there was some room for the so-called buddy to get closer if he wanted to. The dude was not happy I wasn't succumbing to his ask.

This led to a frame battle and lot of verbal jabs. He kept saying why don't I move somewhere else and why do you keep bringing it up, which is what he kept doing (common dumb attack, attack your opponent for what you're doing). I was leaning to losing at first, then he said some idiotic comments trying to out alpha me, and I flipped the switch and did amused mastery. I started to run circles around him and I see him assessing how he could recover in this situation.

This expectedly led to threats of knocking me out. His girl at this point took his hand and was trying to move up. He was very reluctant to sucede his position but started to walk that way. I said something like "yeah thatta way", which in hindsight was my downplay, because he stopped following her and returned to his spot.

I continued chirping, and then mimicked and mocked him when he busts out his chest. He was much shorter but husky. I called him out for trying to be a tough guy. And then looked away. This kind of was the breaking point because I kept my frame and then basically called him out for wanting to get physical and looked away that I could care less.

He shoved me and I said "what are you 5'5.. I get why you have to be like that (acting like a tough guy) because or your height". Couple more verbal back and forths, me landing the verbal punches.

This led to him throwing his drink at me, which basically stunned/blinded me, and simultaneously came at me throwing punches. They landed pretty good. And it wasn't just a couple hits. The guy went mental. I got a cut, goose egg on side of head, left side of face is swollen up and he ripped my top shirt. I didn't wanna throw any punches because of past legal concerns (or go to cops later because of this). And I really didn't have position to throw any since he bull rushed me. Although I was trying to pull his shirt over his head as any good hockey player would.

Shockingly enough, no security came in. The place was so packed and dark it was hard to see. And for some reason that club is criminally understaffed. Guys around me got in between us. I chirped a few more things like "look at that, all you got out of it was a lost drink". He tried to attack me couple more times because I was laughing it off and still undercutting him with verbal jabs.

Guys around me saw that I was in the right because they kept taking my side. Was talking with one of these dudes and he said to move up, no good sticking around, especially because he could cold cock me again and my legal issues. I didn't want to move because in a way that would be giving in, but couple minutes later I did.

One sidenote is I asked a bartender to throw my shirt out for me when I went to get a drink. She asked why was it torn up. Told her and then gave me one on the house. So there was one upside to getting face knocked haha.

So, I didn't take things physical, but I for sure fed into it. Where did I fall out of line? Should I have just shook him off a lot earlier and not play into escalating things? Was kind of hard to know what to do trp wise because I was keeping my frame, amused mastery and didn't make any physical threats or moves.