Yesterday we cooked dinner together with a family we met on the campsite. When we started preparing food I wanted to hand the other dad a big knife to chop some veggies. He said he brought one and pulled it out of his box. The knives looked similar and were in close proximity, we were both holding them in our hands ready to chop — or fight! Because that’s where my body went: going into playful fight mode. I noticed how I tensed, got into a more stable position and were just about to start a little pretend-sword-fight. I caught myself before going fully into that, but my body had already started to move and I quickly made a joke about whetting our knives and moved my blade once or twice a long his blade.
There was nothing remotely hostile in our interaction, neither before, nor during, nor afterwards. There was also no thought of hurting anyone within me, it was all on the level of play and yet it was play to fight other humans. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have had such a clear and direct fight response to a woman holding a knife.
We (men) are trained to find joy and companionship with other men in fighting — I could see it SO clearly in this little incident yesterday. And it’s not that this is in itself a big problem. I see the problem in that it is commonly difficult for us to find joy and companionship in things that don’t involve some kind of competition or fighting.