• lenathaw@lemmy.ml
    8·
    14 days ago

    Reminds me of a story a friend told me when I was traveling through South America.

    My friend was walking home late at night and a guy from another country (forgot which, but it was obvious from his accent) asked him for money. This exchange of course happened in Spanish:

    “I have an iron” “what does iron means in your country?” “by iron I mean knife” and pulls out a knife “oh, because here iron means this” and pulls out a gun.

    Then the robber just ran away.

    • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
      3·
      3 months ago

      I would immediately interpret that as “I don’t need a knife (to absolutely fuck you up right now)” based on the oblivious completely casual tone and lack of any fear.

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 months ago

        Which if you know anything about martial arts is complete bullshit and doesn’t exist. If the dude has a knife, there isn’t a “badass” alive that survives without huge injury, and death most times. There is a reason the saying “the winner of a knife fight dies in the ambulance” exists.

        • notabot@lemm.ee
          41·
          3 months ago

          Which is why you end the fight before it starts. The greentext got lucky but by reacting oddly enough to make the robber pause then leaving they did the right thing.

          I’ve been in a similar situation except I punched the thief before they drew the knike and then left. The fact he was obviously high as a kite probably helped. Ultimately, a knife fight between two sober, focused opponents, who are intending to kill or seriously injure will likely end as you suggested, but it the aggressor isn’t actually ready to fight the fight can be avoided, or ends up much less lethal.

          • Maalus@lemmy.world
            1·
            3 months ago

            A knife fight between someone who has a knife and someone who doesn’t just makes you an easy target. A 12 year old can stab a huge guy to death. Check the marker tests on youtube. A dude wears a white shirt / nothing, the 12 yo has a marker and is told to stab. Even with them not doing the “maniac stab” there is always a cut or stab that kills you. Lots of time tendons are cut which means you couldn’t defend yourself. Lots of time someone nicks your liver. Sometimes a stab goes through an artery, through the heart, etc. The fact that your punch worked means you got extremely lucky and the other guy immediately stopped.

            • notabot@lemm.ee
              1·
              3 months ago

              That’s the thing, if the other guy actually means to harm you and has a knife, and you’re within range, you’re going to get injured or killed. If they just mean to scare you you might get lucky. Telling the two apart in the instant you have isn’t always feasible, but you can usually tell if someone’s impaired enough that you can get away. Yes, I got lucky, but it was an ‘educated’ choice as I’d seen him, rather unstably, coming.

              I was taught that if you’re faced with a potential fight you try to talk your way out of it, failing that you run, and only if you can’t do that do you fight. If you have to fight you do so to end the threat as quickly and safely (for yourself) as possible.

  • frank@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 months ago

    Similar story:

    I was in Medellin, Colombia, outside of the football stadium, trying to see where the rest of our friends were at before heading inside. A guy came up and was saying he was a big fan of one of the teams playing. He lifted his shirt to show me a really shitty tattoo of the team logo. I noticed there was a knife in his wasteband, but I was distracted because I was looking for friends. He asked for me for money and I casually said, “No, Gracias.” and walked away. He started yelling at me with a lot of fun Colombian bad words. I was wondering why he was so mad and as I was walking away, I realized he was trying to threaten me with the knife.

    There were a lot of people around and police all around us. Really ballsy on his part for even attempting something like that there.

    If I did that in a different situation, I probably would have been stabbed.

  • Gnome Kat@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Not even joking something similar happened to me.

    A dude told me he had a gun, he was trying to rob me or something. I just told him that was neat, like “oh cool… this dude is just into guns or something”.

    It wasn’t till later I realized he was trying to rob me. He just stared at me like I was a moron and walked away…

  • ClaraBecker@threads.net@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    3 months ago

    At a bus stop, I was nearly beaten for wearing the wrong color shirt. This fella was told to hit someone wearing red and, in an attempt at easing their conscience, kept trying to find a reason to dislike me. Meanwhile, I’m just confused and apparently befriending him over our shared hatred of Russians and security guards and a mutual love of Islam. Unlike the greentext, my guy had the courtesy to at least apologize and explain the situation. Feels like a fever dream and I do not expect a single human being to ever believe me. There is no punchline, just my continued confusion. I still do not know how to feel about this.