With the world on edge right now, videos of people fighting are not exactly rare — but the ending to this one sure is.
A teenager is being praised online after he posted a video of himself being attacked by a man, which culminated in the two of them hugging it out.
Explaining what happened on Reddit, a user named ObiWanKenobi22 said he was celebrating his sister’s birthday on Monday with friends at Sky Valley Resorts in Desert Hot Springs, California, when they got on the wrong side of one of the other guests.
The 19-year-old said he had cannonballed into the pool, which annoyed a man sunbathing nearby, who began insulting him and challenging him to a fight, threatening to “show him respect.”
He said he apologized to the man, and even thanked him for looking out for other guests, before moving away to another area.
But the man continued to threaten him, which is when he took out his phone and started recording.
The video shows the man aggressively approaching, repeatedly asking “are you gonna harass me?” before allegedly punching the filmer and knocking the camera out of his hand.
A short 16-second struggle can be heard, before a friend picks up the camera to reveal for the first time that ObiWan is actually 6ft tall and 300lbs — and has easily overpowered his assailant.
With the man’s arms helplessly pinned to the ground, he is completely at the teen’s mercy, but still attempts to take a swing at him — yet the teen never strikes back.
“I have you down right now — do you want me to sock you?” he asks the man, who finally relents and asks: “why are you doing this?”
“Why do you? Who threw a punch at you? Who talked to you? We said sorry for the cannonball,” the teen replies. “He said ‘Thank you for caring about the community.’ My friend asked you how your day was! And then we ignored you.”
The man then tells the teen his brother is dying; the teen is skeptical for a moment, before bringing the altercation to its surprise ending.
“If I let you get up — will you stay with us?”
Helping the man to his feet, he apologizes and pulls him in for a hug — and the man hugs back.
ObiWan — who wishes to remain anonymous — told TooFab he initially struggled not to reciprocate; “but in the end I’m glad I held myself back and showed love.”
The teen came in for widespread praise for his mature handling of the situation online. As one of the top Reddit comments summarized: “Remember when adults used to be the adults and the youth used to be the youth?”
In the comments section, ObiWan said he spoke to the man for 15 minutes afterward.
“Don’t know how much of his story I believe, but he was telling me how his brother was dying, how he’s had some PTSD from serving in the Army, and was just annoyed,” he said.
“I explained to him why he was wrong and showed him our perspective, apologized for doing the canon ball, and he kept talking about his personal issues. I let him vent, it seemed like he needed it.”
ObiWan went on to reveal he himself suffers from depression and had previously attempted suicide three times, so understood “personally the extremes of all emotions.”
“I think no one lacks compassion, they just bury it deep. At my worst, I was rude to others. I would push away family and the few friends I had, would go out of my way to find things wrong with me and those around me, become angry at someone even for talking to me, and I ended up taking it all out on myself,” he wrote. “Cutting, strangling, and 3 attempted suicides later, I started to realize I wasn’t mad at those around me at all. I was mad at myself. For what? I didn’t and still don’t know.”
“But I knew that inside me was a desire to be kind to people, like they hadn’t been kind to me. And if someone like me, who’s hated themselves to the point of attempting suicide, can learn to push past all that hate and negativity to show love, then I think most people can.”
When one user pointed out how lucky/stupid the guy was for starting on a guy twice his size, he agreed.
“Exactly what I told the guy. I asked what he thought would happen punching a guy like me. I also told him that he’s lucky that A) he punched me and not some psycho waiting to commit their next murder and B) that we’re in a America, where people SHOULD be able to disagree without resorting to violence.”
Another user mused ObiWan should have been a police officer and that the force needed more like him; he revealed that was what he originally wanted to be as a child.
