Violence - Gallantry - Stupidity

Why do certain men feel better about themselves by acting abusive towards women? There are few things I hate more than an abusive man.
One of my oldest friends is in the process of breaking up with an abusive man. This evening said man got drunk and started getting out of control. I could hear him from my apartment (they live in my building) so I decided to go make sure he understood that she was not alone and he needed to leave.
He has no problem acting abusive towards her or her daughter because they are smaller than him, but he is a very little man and I am at least four inches taller than him and one hundred times more confident in my abilities to “take him” if need be. I also take issue if someone raises their voice at me. I just don't do it, I refuse to engage in yelling matches, and no one yells at me ever.
Abusive men don’t like strong women who will stand up to them and stay in control of their emotions. In fact they don’t like anyone who will stand up to them, I think that is why they are so angry because they generally feel weak in every day life.
I also grew up in a house with all men 6’3 and above. There is nothing his 5’5 and 140 pound self could dish out that I could not take.

I went up and asked him to leave in a very level yet stern tone. He started flipping out on me. He called me several names rhyming with itch and punt and then he lurched towards me.

In my head I am thinking, “This guy is obviously drunk and violent and I think he thinks he is going to either belittle me, hit me, or scare me into backing down. Should I take this time to call the police or should reason with him to leave without getting the cops involved?”

My head is being all rational while I am standing there with my hands in my pockets and he is screaming less than an inch from my nose.
Then this pops out of my mouth in a very even, matter of fact, Dirty Harry, tone, “Listen to me, I am not at all afraid of you. If you don’t get out of my face I will pepper spray you so fast your head will spin. Don’t test me because you have no idea how much I really want to.”
He jumped back out of my face really fast and proceeded to scream at me what a horrible person I was and ranting on and on until finally marching away off into the night.

What was funny to me was every time he called me a name I took it as a huge compliment.

Now that it is over and he is gone I am thinking to myself; that was a really stupid thing for me to get involved in and crazy people are seriously dangerous and what the bloody hell was I thinking?
I should have just called the police.
This is real life! Did I not learn anything from that lady who got shot getting mugged because she mouthed off to her mugger?
I may be a total scrapper in my head but faced against sheer crazy! What the hell am I thinking? I know all the statistics about domestic violence murders. I have seen all of the women on the news who go missing, and it turns out later they were murdered by their crazy ex husbands, boyfriends, stalkers…
I don’t have super powers and I am not bulletproof.
So my attitude went from proud of myself for helping a sista out to really disappointed in myself for putting myself in such a potentially dangerous position.

I am so much smarter than that. I need to remember to listen to my brain and not my inner scrappy Alaskan the next time something like that happens.

This gets filed under "What was I thinking?"