Have you ever been punched in the face, and did it teach you a lesson/what was it?1

Hasn't everyone? I honestly can't count how many times. Fortunately it hasn't happened since I turned around 30, so it's been a while. Lesson? Each one was a little different, but the overall lesson was to avoid physical confrontations because I am a terrible fighter.

My brother punched me in the face when I was little (nine or ten), but since then: no.

We used to punch slap each other in the face for fun at school

The first one who stopped slapping the other person, because they didn’t want to risk getting slapped back again, lost

I don't think I have been. I've been hit in the face with baseballs (one intentionally thrown at my face when I wasn't looking, breaking my nose). Slapped. Elbows and knees to the face incidentally in BJJ.

The closest violence-as-a-reality-check I've experienced is being pushed down a staircase. My friend had a party in his trailer. I was drunk and talking shit to some hothead. He pushed me down the five feet of stairs at the entrance of the trailer.

I learned that some people view words as an assault and it's best to let such people live in their lies.

I got slapped once by my ex girlfriend when I was 22.

That's the only beating I ever received.

I'm sure I never learned whatever lesson one is supposed to

I have never been in a real fight or had any strike me in any context where I shouldn’t be getting punched. I train Muay Thai and that training consists of almost purely controlled sparring. I took a nice hook to the face last week. But in the context of your questions those don’t really count.

Now one instance does come a bit closer to your question but it was still in a voluntary setting. When we were kids (15-17) we decided it would be fun to buy nine ounce gloves From our local sports store and have at in on each. The fad only lasted a couple weeks. Towards the end, someone who was outside of our main friend group was hanging out with us, and I shouldn’t have, but agreed to box him. I was 15, pre-pubescent, and 115 ish. He was 17, post pubescent, and around 150. I was a squirrelly boy though and I like a good competitive challenge.

We boxed. I held my own for a bit, drew blood on my opponent in a weird way by clipping his lip with the covered but non-padded part of my glove. He knew that was what happened too and wasn’t happy. We continued to box. I remember he would throw a punch and keep his hand there a couple inches from my face and throw a couple mini-strikes which was hard for me to deal with. What I wish I could remember how it happened or what he threw was the punch that nearly knocked me out. The only thing I could express pride in outwardly to my friends was “well he didn’t knock me out!” But man was it close. I remember stumbling all around in a 10 foot radius. I couldn’t see or make out any detail of my surroundings. Everything was whiter than it should be and the white garage doors we were near were very white relative to their normal dusty off-white color. I’m lucky it wasnt a real fight, controlled or not, because any follow up from my opponent would have crushed me. This guy was a dick for other reasons, but he let me stumble around like a newborn deer while I recovered. We collectively decided to end the match there, declare him the Victor, smoke some pot, and have some beers in the alley we all punched each other in.

Many times. Now you know what is wrong with me. My dad also dropped me down the stairs when I was a baby so that probably explains a lot too. I don't recall this event but my mother made it seem very dramatic while my dad shrugged it off as "just a couple steps". Haha

Most times I was punched in the face I had head gear on though so things could have been much worse.

Yes.

And the lesson was if you're going to upset a guy with way more muscles than you have with a witty comeback, it'd better be a good one worth the pain.

Also: it was totally worth it.

Only once... in fact, I think I've only been in fights 3 or 4 times, and all of them were when I was between 16 and 19.

The time I got punched was because a friend invited me to a pool. He'd invited some other friends, including a girl. We started flirting, and it worked out, but there was another guy in our group who was in love with her, and our friend got jealous. That night, we ended up at an ice cream shop, and the guy grabbed my shoulder. When I turned around, he punched me in the jaw. I didn't react at all; he just walked away, leaving us all behind. A few months later, that girl and I broke up. I learned that you have to find out about girls' lives before you hit on them when you're with a group, haha.

i have been during boxing and kickboxing, never got into much trouble out and about in the bars since i was always having a good time and usually chasing women.

the lesson i have to share is that, if you have never done any kind of boxing (sure this applies to BJJ too), is that, you have no idea how helpless you can be in the presence of someone with even very basic skills

No! Can't remember when last, because I try as much as possible not to get involved in what might result to a terrible combat.

i have been punched in the face, resulting in a non-displaced nose fracture, and even tho it was during a routine sparring session, i learned to not deal or play with some people;

i have also been kicked in the head multiple times during a competition, but the opponent was clearly more experienced and went easy on me, that's why i kept accepting my lesson;

Brute force, not reason, is what matters. If you're stronger, you get your way. If not, shut up or you get punched in the face.