If you’ve ever gone out in Tampa (and I mean ever), at some point during the night, you’re going to see two guys get in some sort of confrontation.
To learn how you can avoid these situations (or get good seats for the show), it helps to know the events that usually lead up to these fights. It doesn’t matter where you are or who the guys are, things tend to happen the exact same way.
You’ll see the fight coming from a mile away, because you can tell exactly which two guys are going to get in a fight from the second you get there. One guy will be with a group of his friends and clearly hammered.
He’s unnaturally tan and jacked to the point where his biceps look like they’re going to rip through his Affliction t-shirt (basically someone who looks like “the situation”).
You’ll notice him right away, because he’s enjoying the song “Like a G6” way too much, dancing obnoxiously and spilling his Corona as he continually lifts the bottle in the air as a toast to his own awesomeness.
The second guy who will be getting in a fight will be walking around, bumping into people like he’s looking for something he’s never going to find.
He’ll either be wearing a shirt like the first guy’s or a bright colored button-up with the sleeves rolled up. Four or five wristbands will clearly prove that he’s “the man,” and he’s been partying at more than one place tonight, or this weekend if he’s cool enough to wear the bracelets from the nights before.
This guy will have an angry look on his face, like everyone is in his way or somehow inconveniencing him.
Once you spot these two guys, it’s just a matter of time before the guy walking around bumps into the guy having way too much fun, which will begin the fight.
The best way to describe what happens next is to translate the story from each of the guy’s perspectives. They both just happen to tell the story the exact same way:
“So I’m just having a good time minding my own business when this a–hole bumps into me. So I’m like, ‘Yo bro, what the f— is your problem?’ And then this kid gets in my face, so I’m like ‘F— this, nobody talks to me like that.’”
After they inevitably are kicked out for their obnoxious yelling, for randomly bumping chests and getting so close to each other’s faces that you don’t know if they’re about to fight or kiss, things start to get fun.
Once they are outside, it basically becomes a contest over who can intimidate the other by using the same common phrases and using the word “f—ing” as every other adjective and verb.
The phrase to start things off is always, “Is this kid f—ing serious right now?” These kids find it so difficult to entertain the thought that somebody may be trying to fight them that they feel the need to question whether the other guy is serious.
The second thing guaranteed to be said by one of these guys is, “This kid must not f—ing know me, man. This kid must not know what I f—ing do around here.” Apparently, what he’s referring to is his ability to “f— s— up.” Everyone else is expected to know this.
The third thing guarunteed to be said at some point during the confrontation is, “Yo. You touch me bro, I’ll f—ing kill you. Just f—ing touch me, bro. I dare you to.”
During any confrontation like this, each person’s interpretation of the “self-defense” law is, “If you touch me, I have the right to stab you in the face with no legal repercussions.”
Finally, one of the guys will bring up his past to really show how much of a bada– he is. He’ll say something like “You’re so lucky I already have two strikes already or I would f— you up right now!” and by “two strikes,” he means two underage drinking citations from a few years ago.
After all this talk, it finally gets to decision time: we find out whether or not these two guys are going to fight.
Most of the time, this decision is solely influenced by one of the guys’ friends. All it takes is one friend to say, “Hey man this guy’s making you look like a b—- right now. All I’m saying is, if I were you, I’d knock this kid out. I wouldn’t let anyone make me look like a b—-.”
Clearly the guy isn’t going to let his friend think he’s a b—-, so he’s going to take his advice and start a fight.
The actual fight usually lasts one or two minutes before they’re pulled off of each other.
Once they make it back to their dorms, each one will go on to brag to their friends how they just “totally ruined this kid in a fight.” The other outcome of the confrontation: a mutual friend of the two guys will show up and get between them, saying something as simple as,
“Hey! Chill guys. Everything’s cool! Just chill!” After two minutes, somehow things turn completely around, and the two guys who were seconds away from killing each other are now best friends bonding over their love for the Yankees and hot girls who wear Ed Hardy hats.
So next time you go out, make sure to look around and see if you can spot the two guys who are about to fight.
If you’re with a group of friends, you can turn it into a game and place bets on which guy you think will be the first to get kicked out.
And just remember: if you really want to get things going, all you need to do is go up to one of the guys and let them know how things would go down, “If I were you.”
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@spartans.ut.edu