• lenathaw@lemmy.ml
    5·
    15 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
      0·
      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
        1·
        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
          1·
          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.

  • frank@lemmy.world
    1·
    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.