Fight or run?

When you read about my teenage years you may get the impression that I was getting in a lot of fight . That would be incorrect . In fact for the most part I live a very peaceful existence . I am still to this day very shy when it comes to approaching someone I am attracted to. The fear of rejection from such a person is so strong that often I just don’t bother. I will deliberately walk around a person or take a detour to avoid conflict . Even when I shop! If the lanes are to full I will avoid that lane and come back to it later. The question of fight or run was resolve a long time ago when I was in grade 6 . On that day it was my birthday and my friends were seeking me out to give me the “bumps”. One friend in particular was Richard who would not give up so easily. Richard wasn’t a bully in any sense . In fact in those days I didn’t have bully problems because my friends were the strongest kids in school. I was fast so I knew he would never catch up to me but I was so scared of him catching me that I missed my whole recess . When the bell rang I started walking back and he did catch me and gave me the bumps. I remember as I was walking into the school being ashamed that I had run and hid from him. I reasoned at the time that only a coward runs away so from that day on when confronted with the decision to “run or fight” run would never again be an option. I would however work very hard at avoiding confrontation. I believe that the people who have challenged me miss interpreted my attempt to avoid conflict as fear ! By the time they realise this its usually to late. The interesting thing about these people who disrespected me and tried to “power trip “ on me is that once I made my stand they would usually back down and no fight occurred. A second interesting thing is that once they back down they would never again want to talk to me again. Believe it or not I actually felt guilty sometime for standing up for myself! With the people I called “my friends” I would tolerate a lot more put downs and some time physical abuse . This is a pattern I would repeat over and over in my life even in my girlfriend relationship. I just took more until eventually I would stand up for myself which usually led to me loosing that friend or girlfriend. My evaluation of this is that once you give people power over you even if its just for a brief time they will not give that power back to you without a fight and if you win they will hate you! They wont resent you ! They will hate you!