Because I will grab your hand. You could hurt me in other unique ways due to my chronic injuries. At the same time, I have spent the last 12 years in severe and unrelenting pain. As a former cyclist racer, I already had an enormous propensity for pain. Now, I’m nearly impervious to it. Nothing you could do would stop me until I lose consciousness. I don’t say that to be mean or a troll or anything. At your age, it is hard to fathom how perception of pain changes at double your age. Like in militaries, the vanguard goes last (older experienced people). We are more susceptible to injuries in some ways, but make up for it in experience and particularly in capacity for pain. Similarly in cycling racing at the amateur local levels, the masters races are often the fastest and most brutal. When you’re older, you know your real limits far better than the voice in your head screaming for you to stop.

I feel like my spine has a long sword shoved through it top to bottom all the time. I hurt in places and ways no human should be aware of their existence. When you are young, you likely imagine stuff like this is impossible; that everything can be fixed or means death. Such is not the case. It is possible to suffer terribly in ways where nothing can be done. I actually appear weaker in my hobbling and caution, trying to avoid cycles of injury, but under that façade, I am still capable, and mask the underlying ability to handle any pain short of death. My margins are on that line all the time. Even since my broken neck and back, I have broken bones riding a bike for physical therapy, and I just rode home with them and while bleeding rather seriously just out of my stubbornness and desire to say I have done so. The swelling actually puts pressure on my spine in ways that make my constant pain go away. Stabbing me, might actually help make me much stronger.