I was never really a fighter until Matt. I guess I didn’t need to be. Joe and I just kind of really didn’t see each other enough. Same with Shane. And Luke would have let me win any fight ever, even if we’d ever had any.

But Matt? He wasn’t afraid to throw down… about pretty much anything.

Usually it was about how I was being “unsupportive” by explaining why maybe his point of view wasn’t the only one.

“Why can’t you just support me?” he’d bellow.

“I am supporting you,” I’d shout back, but then I’d tell him why he was wrong.

(Fine, maybe we both had room for improvement.)

The rest of the time it was usually some imagined slight done to him by me. I hadn’t paid him enough attention. I had given him a “look.” I hadn’t been appropriately pleased about something.

Once, he stormed out of a bar that we’d carpooled to with my friends, because I was talking to them too much and not enough to him. (As I recall, it was so rank with the noise of karaoke and drunk people that there wasn’t much talking to be had anyway.)

Stupidly, I followed him to try to work things out. Had I the chance to do it over, I would have stayed in the bar and karaoked my ass off, and let him walk himself all over town by his own damn self.

But I didn’t.

I followed him and we walked and fought for a few miles before we made up and he decided we should call a cab.

Guess who paid for the cab.

(He didn’t have any cash.)