I am not a one issue, friendship kill-switch, type of person. In my experience, people are complicated and most have more than one trick. If you have a true friend, you should know about other things, that can balance the scale. If a person was a one trick pony, and ignores the rest of their humanity, and 24/7 fixates on some form of being abusive, then I would downgrade them to a casual acquaintance, if they are fair to me. Where I live, is a Liberal stronghold, so being for Trump will get you attacked, even by friends. It becomes a lively debate, sometimes with yelling, and then other aspects of each other take over and the friends laugh and remain. This is how old fashion free speech works.
I have had a few girlfriends, over the years, who were real witches; abusive female. One, in particular, started out fine but as we got closer she got worse. She could get mean and very abusive. I learned to confide sensitive details of my life, to build intimacy and she will turn it against me. I was taught never to hit a girl, but spanking a witch was not out of the question. If she got physical, I would limited myself to a modified grappling style, where I could subdue her; wrap her up and then give her a few butt smacks. She eventually confessed that she thought I needed to express my anger, since I was always calm and rational, so she was purposely pushing my buttons until I got angry enough to act. But once she said she enjoyed the game and the spanking, I stopped. I learned to stay calm and she would vent to the wind.
In my experience, some women want all the benefits of men but none of the liability. If two men were to be verbally insulting and then push each other, it may escalate into a fight. If women escalate the abuse to that stage, they expect to be treated as women; free ride. This is where grappling and arm bars are good; hurts but leaves no marks on their pretty face or body. Most will say uncle and then get soft. Being treated like men has a down side if you pick fights.
I had another brief girlfriend, who said she had lost a daughter in a car accident. Her anger and grief ended her first marriage. When we met she was an artist, numbing herself with drugs, but was trying to get off the stronger pain killers. I helped her deal with her issues for several months and she was getting stable.
Out of the blue she was contacted by her former dealer man, who was trying to get his good paying customer back; she had money from divorcing her well off husband. The next day, I went to her apartment, as usual. But this day she was paranoid of her dealer visiting her. She seems to have the monkey on her back; get a fix or not. She was patrolling her apartment with a loaded shotgun she bought on the black market. She was not supposed to have guns, due to her previous anger issues.
As she patrolled and ranted, she was waiving the loaded gun around, often pointing it in my direction. I could picture the shot gun going off and altering my life, or worse. So I got up from where I was sitting, and I talked calmly, as I approach her, to get control of her gun. I wanted to aim it away from both of us, while she held it. She suddenly acted like I was now the enemy, trying to get her gun or worse.
The thought that came to my mind, was the dealer had planted paranoia in her head; mind games he played on her. As we struggled, then "boom!, the shot gun went off and vaporized an 8 in hole in the carpet, just inches from both our bare feet. We could have both lost a foot. It was thunder storming and the sound of the shotgun boom in her apartment, did not get any neighbor notice. After the boom, we both snapped out of her paranoia and struggle, and she agreed to take my advice and put the gun away in her room.
After that, we were both calm and friendly as we talked on the sofa, until we heard a noise. Then this large man enters the apartment, through the unlocked patio slider. He was wet from the continuing rainstorm. This was her dealer. I was thinking, she finally listens to me, now we have no gun. So I got up into a semi defensive stand/ handshake greeting. But he says, I have nothing against you, I just need to talk to her in private, so I left. I was expecting to hear more gun fire. I was glad to get out of the apartment still in one piece.
The next day, I went back to she how she was, and I notice the vaporized hole was gone. The dealer man fixed it like a pro and had left. He used carpet from a closet. There was a cutout there. A few days later she moved out, with him. I Never saw her since.
There are some women who are not defenseless damsels. It is good to keep options open. Early in our relationship, she had told me she had been a linguistics specialist translating transcripts for the CIA. This was before her daughter died. She could speak and read five languages and knew many dialects of each language. Her "dealer friend" who kept her medicated, also worked for the CIA. She told me they had taken care of the drug dealer, who had given her daughter the drugs, that caused her to die in her auto crash. Who knows the truth, but this was afterthe writing of my MDT theory. I thought I would share that story. I was a huge rebel back then. I am mellow now.
