Like JimB, I lost a fight in the 6th grade...up til then mainly fought with my brothers or silly fights with neighborhood kids. First real butt whoopin I got out back of the YMCA in Kernersville. Kid antagonized me until I agreed to "take it outside"...first thing I remember is a fist flying towards my face. After that it was a bunch of him smackin me around and me trying to get hands on the little bugger. Taught me some very important lessons:
1. Don't take it outside...if you are gonna fight, fight.
2. Hit first, hit hard
3. Being big doesn't necessarily help
Funny story though...in retrospect...
Around 96 in Chapel Hill, I went to a bar on Franklin street with a friend of mine. I was sitting at a table with a friend of mine who was somewhat of a pansy...but he was a pal. (Since then he now lives in DC and is a rabid liberal...we don't talk)
A bunch of drunken frat boys come in and start giving my friend and I a hard time...basic drunk guy stuff...taking shots, smack talkin... So when we have a brief moment I motion to my friend to finish our beers and get out. The head drunk leans over and says "Hey...yall ok?" and I was like "Yeah, we are." He immediately puffs up like a puffer fish and gets all aggressive...apparently he didn't say "Are yall ok..." he said "Are yall gay?"
Well, it was now a matter of a gay bashing about to take place. So we try to settle them down by assuring them we aren't...but I could tell they were pretty anxious to get their trip to bashville going. We did end up making it out, and to this day, I am very careful how I answer questions to drunk people.
And to add...I wasn't necessarily afraid of fighting the one guy...or even his friend. But it was the 4 other friends with them...as Ron White said "I wasn't sure how many of them it was going to take to kick my butt, but they were going to use 6". And my friend? Well, I figured he may be able to take one, or at least slow them down...but the sum total was still me getting my butt smeared all over the bar, possibly arrested, and so on and so forth.