Challenge Accepted

This will be yet another of those rants about the low-brow human who is easily impressed. This is the case of the challenge, and how to back off from one. Now, challenges are annoying things. It is exceedingly easy for one to issue a challenge, but rather difficult to back off from one without looking like a pansy.

Take for example a stupid challenge: I assert that I do not fear death. The challenger retorts that if that were true, I should prove it. Clearly, this is a nonsensical challenge and one should be able to deny it without consequence. It means nothing one way or another. Yet, how can one deny such a challenge at all? It questions one's resolve about a statement one has made about oneself, and to deny the challenge offhand might as well be a retraction of that statement. What a loss! It also creates an opening for the challenger to smugly declare the statement to be false (which would, of course, attract a punch to the face for good measure).

A double dare in this case would be overly glib and can be easily brushed off as an attempt at changing the subject as the challenger has nothing to defend. In fact, it is this position that is particularly galling, because it is possible to issue a challenge on such unequal terms. Of course, there will be those who say that it would have been better not to make the statement in the first place, or my father's belief that to win a fight is to lose one.

My take is that there is no graceful way out of it, and trying to worm one's way out is not only the action of a pansy but can attract jeering by the challenger's peers. The most efficient way I've found so far tends to involve a quick attack of some form, be it a sudden outburst, an assault that ends with the challenger's face ground into the dirt or a double dare and a very stern disposition against any further attempt at a reversal. Hostility and a nasty disposition have their own charm when it comes to diffusing such annoyances.