Alcohol and Masculinity- WTF?

I know that this isn’t exactly new ground for this sub, but I just wanted to share a story from last night. I went out with a coworker who is a very light drinker. We really just wanted to hang out and bogart the digital juke box for a few hours and catch up. He’s usually good for a beer or two with several waters in between. Well, lo and behold, we end up seeing some guys we know from a different city (we are municipal employees) whom I don’t particularly care for, but also (for professional reasons) would not avoid or act like I don’t know them. There were three of them and two of us.

Well, they come sit with us and immediately offer to buy a round. When I say I’m drinking NA porter, the dude asks, “man, you need a fucking tampon with that?” The joke falls pretty flat with everyone, so I thought that’d be it. But oh no… this dude kept at it. Highlights included:

“You quit for the wife piece? How far deep in her purse does she keep your balls?”

“You going to the bathroom? Vagisil drying up?”

As he got drunker (I watched him take four shots of tequila and drink four bourbon barrel stouts), he got more belligerent. Again, the whole time, the other three guys are not laughing at him and starting to tell him to STFU. Finally I just say flatly, “you need to fucking stop, dude.” And he immediately gets up from his stool and gets in my face and says, “or what?” And puts his hand weirdly on my chest like he had meant to push me, but didn’t remember the push part.

At this point, I just barely push him away, as the bartender and waitress have tuned in and are watching us. Well, I don’t know what happened. I am not some tough guy, but he immediately goes falling backwards and flailing around, knocking over beers and a pizza onto the floor. As he struggles to get up, he’s still talking shit about me, calling me a “p@&sy” and stuff like that. The bartender takes him outside, and I didn’t see him again. I assume he got an Uber or took the train home.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why not drinking sets someone off. I have had similar situations before, albeit not NEARLY as dramatic as this one, happened before. The nice part was that everyone in the bar had my back and was saying it was not my fault. It just made me wonder why someone would be so threatened by a sober dude so as to get violent about it.

Just another reason today that I’m thankful that I’m not in that club anymore. Does anyone else experience this insane insistence that some people have that getting wasted is some kind of tough guy thing?