"You want some? Yeah? You want some?" It was not an expression of generosity or even salesmanship, but a verbal attack. Language used to menace, threaten and establish that the conversation would very quickly become physical, rather than linguistic. As he spoke these words he pulled a balaclava down over his face. I realised with a mixture of fear, disgust and despair that this was to conceal his identity for what was to come. It was a calculated and practised ritual for him, a sociological lesson for me. His friends also understood it. I had not noticed that there were five or six of them, and one of them was carrying a stick. They stood around me. One of them was despairing like me, and advised me to walk away and not look back. It was a dangerous choice. A knife could easily be thrust into my back or kidneys, a hard object swung at my head, or they could have kicked and damaged my car. But the alternative was the real possibility that I could end up in hospital, anyway. I walked away from my car and did not look back. I was protecting my car from their predatory interest, peering through the open sun-roof. They had no right to do that - but I did not want to be hospitalised.

For many men, like me, this kind of situation is distressing and confusing. There was no physical violence, but I had to reflect on its wider significance to restore my sense of confidence. As a man, part of you wants to or thinks you should be able to defend yourself. You do that by winning, i.e. attacking and hurting the other person - or in this case the other people, whose days were obviously spent disrupting school lessons or avoiding school altogether. They were about 14 or 15 years old.

I am not physically imposing, they were quite probably carrying weapons, and were obviously used to this. A few months previously, I had read about groups of teenagers on bicycles robbing and attacking innocent people. Used in that way, the bicycle becomes an efficient, urban get-away vehicle.

I had a few schoolboy scraps many years ago, and since then just a few potentially violent encounters. My current protagonists were far more practised than I was, despite their youth. They probably came from families and locales that educated them in the rites and victories of violence.

Most boys (and probably most girls) experience physical fights; some more than others. Most grow out of it, and later reflect that it was no more than boyish physicality joined with (inarticulate) emotional struggles. Some do not grow out of it, and continue to trade violence in adult life as an expression of masculine domination, their own psychological damage, social deprivation or economic needs.

I remember one of the first encounters I had like this, aged about ten years old. I was walking with a friend in a park, and an older boy felt like asserting himself. I ran away. When I looked back, my friend was being beaten up. I felt a bit weak and disloyal. I could see he felt a strong need to stay and fight, knowing that he was likely to get hurt by the older boy. About twenty years later, I walked away again. Both times, I avoided getting hurt. In the movies, it is frequently that kind of experience that makes the hero learn how to fight, and eventually overcome his adversaries. His later battles are a successful re-enactment of earlier humiliation.

I became interested in the martial arts. I still am interested - but more in their philosophical content, rather than the brute reality of giving and receiving pain and accepting possible damage. My teenage years were infused with 1970s culture, when 'kung fu' was a new and mysterious phenomenon and Bruce Lee exploded onto the cinematic screen. I idolised him like thousands of others; when I look at him now I do so with a radically different vision. I see a sneering, arrogant, egotistical man trying to find security in American culture, which at the time ridiculed Chinese traditions. Bruce Lee was a skilled martial artist with some philosophical understanding. On the screen, his skills were cinematically enhanced and his philosophy never really appeared. Some of the books about him show the other parts of his nature: a family man who married his high school love, Linda, and the fact that he had studied Taoism, Buddhism, psychology and educational theory.

I spend my days at a computer, reading, writing, watching and thinking about movies, and pursuing a meditation practise. I am more of a thinker. Only quite recently did I come to understand that there is a form of discourse where communication is not the objective. The aim is rather to attack and undermine the other person. Of course I have experienced many arguments, but this other kind of discourse is not an obvious argument. It is an irrational form of communication where the real contention is not articulated. You cannot engage with someone in a rational and sincere way, if they are intent on speaking to you in that manner. You have to verbally defend yourself, because what is really being 'discussed' is the balance between your self esteem and theirs. Sometimes I manage to do it, when I am feeling strong. Other times I do not - and attempt, like a man talking to a brick falling onto him, to reason with the other person.

I am competent at reading, writing, thinking and many other skills. I am not competent at physical fighting because of inclination, physical resources, and lack of practise. Why was I troubled when I ran away at age ten, when I avoided getting hurt? In Japanese classics like The Art of War (Sun Tsu) and The Book of Five Rings (samurai Miyamoto Musashi), strategy is advocated over brute force. If it looks like you will lose, try to get away. Viewed in this way, 'winning' becomes a long-term strategic goal, rather than the impulse of an immediate situation.

Rationally, I see that running and walking away was a good decision; in both cases it was strategic to do so. And fortunately, for most of the time in our society, fighting and self defence is not necessary.