When Couples Fight

I consider myself a fairly... sociable man.
...
Let me start that over:
I consider myself the type of guy who gets along well in large groups of people.
...
No, that's bullshit, too.
Ok, last time:
I can stand being around maybe 3 people in a social setting before I start to think bad thoughts.
Yea. That's the ticket.

So I spend a lot of time with small groups of people. A clutch of friends. Conversations exist one at a time, and everyone gets their turn. It's less awkward this way. Like playing a game of catch instead of running along the inside of a batting cage trying to catch every ball fired out by the pitching machines.
The only problem with this is that a few of my friends are in Relationships. Yes, that is a capital 'R.' That's because they live together, and as such I often find myself in a house or apartment that is not mine, restricted in my actions and movements to a single room, and a select number of socially acceptable practices.
Not a huge deal. I never feel like a third wheel and I get the feeling (maybe a false feeling, but no one disabuses me of it, so I keep the hope alive) that my company is genuinely enjoyed. But some(often)times something happens which creates a layer of awkwardness so thick and viscous that it can't be cut with even the strongest, sharpest blade...
The Fight.
When a couple fights it has a strange effect on the rest of the room. It's like suddenly everyone is afraid to speak for fear of somehow making the situation worse. And yet the couple, now the center of attention, makes no attempt at calming down to spare everyone else their quarrels. It is as though they are saying, "Fuck you, world, our shit is your shit now."
Silence looms. Their voices rise, bolstered by the otherwise quiet room. Somewhere a man tries desperately not to sneeze. No one moves. God himself slows the movement of the universe and stays the hand of fate.
I am convinced that while a couple is fighting people on their death beds are hastened to their final reward because they try not to breath.
What the hell are you supposed to do when this happens? God forbid you try to be an arbiter of some kind, an emissary from a world that just wants to be able to open a fresh beer without feeling like they have been singled out.
The couple takes their fight so seriously, and brings to it such emotion, that it seems like sacrilege to try and do something else.
Don't leave the room. Don't enter the room. Don't eat. Don't talk. Don't think about eating or talking. Don't think about what would happen if you thought about eating or talking or thinking about leaving so you could enter again.
All conditions must be left exactly the same so that when the fight ends, the couple can emerge into a world that seems to have been paused. We are but a movie that the fight has interrupted, but now that peace comes again, we can press the collective PLAY button and get on with things again.
And thank God, because this is a pool party and Tim has been underwater for a good seven minutes.

But at least when you are in a large group of people you can glance feverishly between people. When I am alone during one of these raucous Relationship rows I have a feeling of intense dread. What happens if the relationship dies here. What happens if they leave the room and don't come back. At what point can I grab my shit and get out of Dodge? Is there protocol?

No. There isn't. Sit tight, shut up, pray they don't see you and drag you into it. Just remember, their vision is based on movement.

Probably the craziest thing about these fights is that they come seemingly from out of no where.
Picture the most innocuous activity possible - let's say staring at a wall with a picture of a smiley face on it. A couple is engaged in this activity with me next to them. We are enjoying ourselves when suddenly the man will say something equally innocuous.

Him: "Man, this is really getting good now."

Shit. Well, now he's done it. What has he done? No one knows. But for whatever reason, at this place and time, that was the exact wrong thing to say. Had he expressed Nazi sympathies he would have made a better choice of words.

Her: "So what, it wasn't good before?"
Him: "No, I was just saying it's even better now."
Her: "Why, because you had another sip of beer?"
Him: "Baby, I am just saying that this wall keeps getting better and better. Besides, this is only my second beer of the night."
Her: "Whatever, there's no need to get an attitude."
Him: "I'm not, I'm just trying to explain..."
Her: "You are drunk, I can't believe it, we have company over."

At this point I pound my fourteenth shot of whiskey and cross myself.
Did you see where this all went wrong? It was somewhere around the time they were both born.
As far as I can see, there is no way to avoid this type of thing. A joke about a priest and a rabbi will rapidly and horrifically morph into a shouting match about who is more worthless (note: in the end, they both are, because they are distracting me from the wall, dammit) or who has the worse addiction/bad habit/taste in chips.
Usually at the end of this all I am stuck sitting next to one of them (the victor? the vanquished? who knows...) as we sigh awkwardly and I steal myself for the final, painful moment when they ask, "Was I right?"
Fuck me, I don't know if you were right! I don't even know what you were fighting about in the end. At some point it sounded like you two were arguing the tenants of Zoroastrianism. Invariably I try to split the difference because I know no other way to work. You did this wrong, they did this wrong, you ought to stop doing things wrong.

My one enduring hope is that when I get into a relationship my girlfriend and I can only fight about important things. ("I am telling you, the relevance communistic Socialism died along with Lenin, and the only true way to operate a government in the modern world is through a Fascist dictatorship that melds itself with transcendental philosophies and a greater understanding of deist thought!") At least then people will be able to take a side. Or at least fake it.

Until then, I pray for the day when I am old enough to convincingly fake a fucking heart-attack.