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Short thread: true story. A few years ago, I was doing a talk in a cathedral. My interviewer, a community liaison officer, was a young Muslim woman in a hijab. Ten minutes into the event, a man turned up: drunk, and angry about what he felt was a misuse of the space.
He was a big guy, a bit rough-looking, and he was starting to be properly disruptive. No-one in the crowd intervened. There was no security. He wasn't wearing an evening dress, so I guess he could have been armed.
I was about to respond, when my interviewer said to me quietly: "Keep going, I've got this." She left me to talk to the audience and went to the back to talk quietly to the man, who eventually followed her into a side room. The event went on as planned.
Afterwards, at the siging, my interviewer returned. I asked her what had happened to the protester. She told me that he had expressed his concerns, that she had listened, and that they had agreed to meet for coffee the next day, when he had sobered up.
And this, children, is how a responsible adult behaves when trying to resolve a conflict. "Instinct" is for bullies and dogs. #MarkField
