Nicco

I had to choose between Aberdeen and Liverpool, and I chose the city that had a port, and it was close to the ocean to remind me of home. Liverpool has always been a safe place for me up until the night, about a weekend after I landed.

Alex

Welcome to stories of men beneath the surface. I'm Alex Melia. Join me as we discover what it means to be a man in the modern era.

In today's episode, we're diving into a topic that hits really close to home for me, we'll hear what happens when a man is the victim of an unprovoked attack. And the ripple effects that has on our sense of self and our relationships. Nico had just moved to the UK from Cyprus. It was Freshers week at university. And he was excited to explore the city with his new friends.

Nicco

We got a taxi went into town had a couple of drinks. I remember drinking beer and I remember drinking shots. That was probably the first time that I've had a shot in my life was getting a little bit tipsy. And I was getting a little bit paranoid. And I was saying to myself, you know, you're in a foreign country, you you don't remember your address. How are you going to get home? How are you going to look after yourself. But there was another part of me that said, you know, just just let go and enjoy it. Me and three of my flatmates, we decided to leave it was 2am We had our fun, I was relying on them to take me home because I didn't quite know where we lived. And I didn't know where to get a taxi, I was quite new. So my safety was basically in their hands. And we ended up walking for a long time. And then you would hear all the voices of strong people around people leaving the clubs and broken glass in the in the background. I had to remind myself everything's okay, you know, it's a busy city, just keep on walking. And I remember letting my guard down enough to not make a deal of four guys behind us following us. And I remember checking the corner of my eye looking back and they were getting closer and closer and closer to us. 20 seconds later that after that I had that thought I felt some pushing my shoulder. So as I turned, I get a good punch in my eye. The next thing that I remember is that I was on the floor. I was trying to get up and I could see my mates having an having a full on fight with these guys whilst I was on the floor. As I got up, I got another punch in my mouth. That could taste like the metallic taste of Bloods. One of my mates run off, and he was trying to get help. But me and the other two guys, we were basically getting beaten. It's just that fear that paralyses you I thought it would took 20 seconds. I thought the whole thing was 20 seconds. But it wasn't. It must have taken like 10 or 15 minutes and nobody came to save us. Obviously it was four o'clock in the morning. We're in the middle of nowhere. I was just not

Alex

did that make you feel?

Nicco

To be honest with you, it made me feel really weak. It made me feel like I should have done something different or I should have shouted I should have run when I saw them closing on behind as I should have just run. But then again, it was because I was trying to fit in. How are they going to think of me? Am I am I going to be the front now because obviously I didn't protect them. And I was the first one to go down. I had to reevaluate my safety. And it wasn't it wasn't nice. I thought I lived in in a city where I will be safe. I live in a country where I could be safe. I could be whoever I want and I can I can walk home so that I had to reevaluate the whole thing. How am I safe? Am I safe? I remember I got the phone call from the police. When they told me and I remember I was studying I was in the library and the police called me and they said we're gonna have to close the case because we don't have enough evidence. We don't. We can't catch those guys. But you know, if they've done it once, they're probably going to do it again. It's a matter of time. After that phone call, I was so disappointed. But I remember going back to the police station. I remember the police officer who were there. I was trying to tell her the whole story and I was trying to include as many details as possible. And she she said something that really hit home. So I was telling her about hearing the footsteps behind me for half an hour and how I could see the distance getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. And and she said to me If you feel like someone is following you, and you don't feel safe, which I told her that I didn't feel safe, she said to me, why did you not just run? And I said, well, because I didn't want people to think that I'm paranoid. And I didn't want my friends to think that I'm being, you know, dramatic or over the top. And you know, I was trying to balance it out. And she said to me, Well, if your instinct was telling you that you were in trouble, then you should just run, and you should put your safety first and then let people call you paranoid, let people think that you're not calling off, but you would have been safe. If you guys felt the danger, and you run away from it, you would have been safe now. And I remember, I felt stupid. I felt stupid when she said that, because I was like, it makes perfect sense. If someone's following you, you just run.

Alex

What do we read the motives of these guys that were following you? Was it? Did they steal anything from you? Do they just want to get a kick out of beating people?

Nicco

It wasn't a robbery. They weren't trying to rob us because they didn't take any money or any of that money or any of our belongings. But they they did seem to be following following us for quite a while, right? So it wasn't like they just wanted to get in trouble. And they just wanted to attack someone. Because if they wanted to do that, then they wouldn't, they wouldn't follow us for half an hour. The police told us that we were quite vulnerable, because because obviously we were drunk. And because we're walking through a dark alley. But what what I think, too, today is the fact that we we weren't we were gay. And we were all quite small physically. So essentially, we were an easy target. And to be honest with you, I can't answer that question, why they chose us. I guess we're unlucky enough. I don't know if they would attack us if we were sober. Or if we're bigger or more masculine? I, I don't know. But what I do know is that if I go out the way that I look, even with three guys, and I'm drunk, it might happen again. And that, that there's anything that there's nothing that I can do for me to just never feel that, you know, which is why he's affecting me now. Even now. 15 years later, when I do go out and I have my Five pints and six shots. You always think, are you are you okay? Are you? Are you? Are you good enough to look after yourself in a way that if someone is walking behind you for half an hour, you'll be able to just leg it.

Alex

It's interesting, isn't it? Because there's a feeling in society that gay equals weak? In a month? Yes, yes. But if the statistics are true that one in 11 men are gay, and you think about UFC fighters and boxers and karate champions, and all this, think about how many incredibly strong proficient fighters of the gay community there must be.

Nicco

But you know what the problem is, the problem is that we don't have all these fighters and we don't have all these, all these gay people coming out, because history has taught us that if I'm a successful football player, say, and I come out, and I'm gonna get dropped, right, because it's all about marketing is all about the image. It's not about the sports, it's about who you are as a person. So people that are gay cannot come out and say, I'm a fighter, and I'm gay, right? So they can restore that sort of, I want to say power, but it's the wrong word. So they can restore that misconception of gay people being weak. And I think we as LGBT community have to sort of fight, fight metaphorically fight for people to see us as, as not weak. But then again, weakness doesn't have to do with you know, your physical and how big you are. But it has to do with how intelligent you are, and all those kinds of things. How emotionally intelligent, how artistic, you can be, unfortunately, beating three guys up. It's power masculinity. And that's, that's the definition of it. If I have a really good talent in making people talk, if I am emotionally intelligent, and I can make people open up if I can paint an amazing painting, right? I am less of a man.

Alex

We need to change the narrative on these things. I'm very hopeful,

Nicco

because apparently 12% of this generation is not conforming, right. So it's not a strict binary anymore between masculinity and femininity. So it's sort of like blaring. So I really want to know how societies Gonna try and to indicate what what's masculine and what's feminine when we don't have that binary anymore. And that's my hope that the whole thing is going to start crashing down and, and and more men are going to start being okay with doing things that are not characterised as masculine moisturising, and then you know, saying that I feel sad and, and you know, and just normalise those little habits.

Alex

Yeah, that does make me excited about where we're going in the future. If you think back to these four guys who attacked you, what do you think that was it for these guys because from where I'm seeing it and what happened with me with the three guys in Mexico that beat me up, they had a motivation in terms of they wanted to steal from me. But the fact that they came behind me and it like the same thing with you, you turn around you got punched, I turned around and got punched as well, when you have people behind you and you can feel that friction the bottom of their of their shoes on the on the stones. So instead of me turning around, I should have just gone boom and liked it. But I think it was different for me because I'd only heard it for about 10 seconds or so. Yeah. Whereas for you it was it was 30 minutes, so I can totally understand why you might feel the sense of and why that woman said why don't you Why didn't you just run? If they'd have given me a bit of time, I had a gun friend, I just ran away.

Nicco

Watch her though, would you? Would I?

Alex

I like to think I would that is

Nicco

where the question is. Because we question a lot of things in our heads and you've got like, the two sides of you one of them says, run and be safe. And the other one says, No, you're being paranoid, you're fine. Right? And I think I think for me as well was like, well, they can they if something dangerous is to happen, it's fine. Like I can protect myself. I mean, I I got attacked in Manchester before, but those guys attacked me because they saw my phone, I took my phone out and they just wanted my phone. It was the fact that, you know, the first the first time that it happened in Liverpool so many years ago. Like it's, it's with me until today. And you know, every time that I have to think about the privilege that we have been being men, right, so we walk down in the street, and we feel safe, just because we're men, right. And it took me a while to understand that girls don't have that same privilege that we have, like, there's no chance that a girl would walk in a dark alley with three of her mates, you know, at 4am After having a couple of drinks, right? There's no chance they wouldn't feel safe. And even if they did, they would have lagged it. And the reason why I didn't do that it was because I'm I'm a man and I'm with with three of my mates. So I'm safe, right? Everybody tells a tell it tells me that I should be safe, where everybody tells girls, no, you're not safe, you can't walk home, you know, or if there's someone behind you, you have to run. So it just again, it's just another spectrum of of my privilege being a man and you know, it got me thinking, you know, is that how girls feel when when they go home is you know, how do they feel when when they have a couple of drinks? And how do they look after each other? How do they protect themselves?

Alex

It is an interesting question you pose. Is it a privilege to be a man we talk about male privilege? Is it a privilege to be in this scenario? In this particular scenario, I mean, because it wasn't a privilege for you to be a man in a dark alley, when four guys are following you. It wasn't a privilege for me walking down a dark street by myself. Because if I was a woman, and I said this to friends as well, if I was a woman, there's no way I would have walked on by myself. But it was just this ego. It was this ego of I'm six foot three, you know, I go to the gym, I'll be I'll be completely fine. No, you're not fine. If there's guys, you've got knives on them and you're outnumbered. And there's three of them, three of them against one. So do you think that we are we are having difficulties, both you and I and then your friends as well? Or we have bad things happening to us? Because we have we have bought into this idea that we are we are safe in all circumstances?

Nicco

Well, first of all, I think that you you in a way, in a way I because I'm five foot seven, right? And I'm quite small. I if I see danger, I run, right, I'm not gonna because I've got no ego. But I do think that people that are big and muscley and you know, six foot seven, I think that's where the problem is. And I would really like to know how many how many of those people get stopped? Because they think I'm a big guy who's going to who's going to come and attack me right and then and then they get stopped right? Because of that ego of that privilege of looking the way that they do. Right? But I do think in a sense that no one's safe in a way if someone's gonna attack you, they're gonna attack you but it has to do With certain with with with ego and and how you break it down afterwards. And if you can be okay with yourself work for not fighting back or for not running

Alex

after that incident? How did you change as a man? And how did you change your perception of your masculinity?

Nicco

Well, I struggled with it right? Because obviously if you get beaten, you feel less of a man, that's true. And I remember for months, I was thinking maybe I should go to self defence, go to the gym, you know, all those kinds of things. But it didn't make me feel that I was enough the way that I was. And then in order for me to be safe, which is the bare minimum, is to change myself. And I was like, That's not normal me having to change. So I don't get attacked. It's a big thing to break down and digest.

Alex

Sometimes I think to myself, is there a certain sense of having compassion for people who do that kind of thing? And I know it sounds strange, because we've been beaten up. But actually, what's their home life like? Because if they, if they had excellent relationships with their parents, or really loving, fulfilling environment, fulfilling jobs, do you think those people would go around, following the four guys at 4am, to beat them up, they wouldn't do that they would channel their energies into something positive and for society, but they're not doing that. So there's a certain element of compassion and and when I started to feel compassion for these three guys doing, you beat me up, thinking to yourself, what what was their background like to have to do that to walk around at 4am, when really they should be asleep, preparing for their work day are with their families, or whatever. So it's breaking it all down. And actually, as you break all of these things down and think about the other person, then you can actually start to overcome the traumas that that you and I have, because it's easy for people to say, What do you mean compassion for that other guy, or these guys? Like, they beat me up? They hurt me, they gave me traumas or whatever. But actually, I think that can almost set us free.

Nicco

I think you're absolutely right. I think that if we call ourselves victims, you or me, we can sort of deconstruct what happened and, and think things in a way where it can make us you know, question, thanks. So we, we can think things further and we can make something out of it. I think that those people the only thing that they got is a high from power. And you know, maybe a little bit of satisfaction. But I think that those people have a unable to deconstruct themselves in the way that we had to.

Alex

can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for Nico is first week ever in another country. And he's viciously assaulted. Someone saw young literally just outside of school to have that happen to him, it must have been an incredibly emotional ordeal. Whereas for me, when I got attacked, I was 35 years old. So I had the self esteem. And I had the life experience to know how to handle it. What Nico and I have in common with our attacks, is that we put the blame on ourselves, we take responsibility for it, which can be a good thing, and it could be a bad thing. Why should we take the responsibility for something that happens to us like that? Shouldn't we think about the fact that these people shouldn't be doing this in the first place? What we can find from being subjected to vicious attacks like this is it makes us feel like less of a man and I can say that for myself. And we end up replaying the scenarios again and again and again, and almost creating new scenarios. For me, I felt like I replayed it a million times where I imagined myself hitting these people back or running away from danger. Miko was able to reflect upon the situation that happened to him with an incredible sense of compassion, and that shows his high level of emotional intelligence. There's a decision to make when something bad like this happens to you. Do you stay the victim for many months years to come? Or take things constructively and positively and analyse them and think how can I avoid this situation happening and again in future? I think a big lesson that I take from this episode is to trust our instincts and not let our egos get in the way because we don't want to look scared that we may come across a so called weak.