Bullies and the Like

[Blade]

psychokind wrote:

I was always very popular, did sports, had tons of friends, my parents are upper middle-class and I started girls/drinking/smoking/coolstuff puberty at about 13 so I never got bullied, but bullied all the time. from primary school to high school, where I reached the peak together with my friends. I think I mentioned it before in a similar debate; we bullied classmembers into psychiatric treatment. even while in the army, I bullied others to not get bullied myself. it stopped in university, where I had to make new friends very fast and realized my social networking doesn't benefit from bullying anymore.

How does it feel to read about, and hang around with people from the other side? Do you feel blame?

On topic, I got bullied/mobbed during elementary school and highschool, but I was one of those vew victims who didn't hold back/took it all up. I pretty much fought back, maybe that why I'm not socially awkward or messed up.
For the last 7 years I've recovered, made friends, and I'm fine now.
And those workingclass bullies from once ago are mostly messed up anyway today.

[psychokind]

Blade wrote:

[ How does it feel to read about, and hang around with people from the other side? Do you feel blame?

oh well, I do not put "bullied"/"was bullied" into wager about peoples personalities too much. most people just have bad luck with their classmates, some have bad luck with their parents, some with their social status etc... and some just deserve it. you have to judge from case to case individually I'd say.

[Yet One More Idiot]

I always tried to fight back, on the advice of my parents, friends and family (and family friends). It didn't do me a lick of good though, because then I got in trouble for fighting.

Even more ironic, the bullies got off scott-free every time.

Reason? I was about twice their size. BUT, and it's a big but, being big doesn't keep you safe from being bullied. I was big as a kid (and I don't just mean a bit overweight, I also mean tall - in 1st year primary I was at least a full head taller than everyone else in my year), but I was weak, and while I tried to fight back, I wasn't able to do much damage. But because I was so much bigger than my bullies, the teachers would punish me - the biggest kid in the pack - for beating THEM up. O, the irony.... :p

In the end, I realised that trying to protect myself from bullying by fighting back was only ever gonna get me in trouble - the boys beating me up were all smaller than me, and then after them, well, it was a girl I was fighting, and that looked even worse to the teachers (even when she was repeatedly sitting on my face). So I stopped fighting. I just went about school bruised black and blue all the time, and effectively behaved like a walking punching bag. At least they stopped giving me detentions for fighting (even those dumbass teachers couldn't tell me off for fighting when I was literally just standing there getting beaten and scraped and bruised, and my "target" was completely unscathed).

They finally admitted later that they knew I was getting bullied by the other kids, but it was easier for them to punish me and sweep the matter under the rug than to try to deal with the parents of the bullies, who'd get angry and make formal complaints against the school. ******* ***** ******** ******** ******* ********** *** ****! (that wasn't an actual sentence, but I'm sure you get the gist anyway).


In the long run, all those years of beaten knocked about by all the other kids hasn't really harmed me - I never turned to bullying myself (like hell I would - I wouldn't put any poor sod through what I went through!), and I still did well at school (apart from being a little lazy about doing my homework ), and made good friends and everything.

[EverPhoenix]

Yomi's Evil Twin Intern wrote:

They finally admitted later that they knew I was getting bullied by the other kids, but it was easier for them to punish me and sweep the matter under the rug than to try to deal with the parents of the bullies, who'd get angry and make formal complaints against the school. ******* ***** ******** ******** ******* ********** *** ****! (that wasn't an actual sentence, but I'm sure you get the gist anyway).

that is ridiculous. the school caves to bullying, and uses you as a scapegoat. what ended up happening once you stopped retaliating? they just let it slide?

[Yet One More Idiot]

EverPhoenix wrote:

that is ridiculous. the school caves to bullying, and uses you as a scapegoat. what ended up happening once you stopped retaliating? they just let it slide?

Yep, really, they punished me for bullying, fully knowing that I was the victim, because it was easier than facing up to the parents of the actual bullies (who they figured were probably of similar mindsets to their kids).

And yes, once I stopped fighting back and just stood there and took it, they couldn't do anything. Even they couldn't punish me for bullying/fighting when I was just standing there and getting myself thumped black and blue, so they just pretended they didn't notice it happening at all. Cue lots of times when the teachers would be conspicuously looking in the opposite direction whenever they heard sounds of kids cheering on a fight.

[subjectnamehere]

I was bullied a lot as a kid for a lot of reasons - I was weird, quiet, nerdy, not very attractive, physically week and I had glasses. In 8th grade I had enough and transferred into a new school. It was pretty good, actually, until I started suspecting that people were ignoring me - the thought of that made me depressed so I started skipping school a lot, which resulted in low grades.

I've realized now that they didn't ignore me - I ignored them by isolating myself socially. Of course, it's too late now that I have already transferred into another school.

But on a more positive note, I've talked to some of them on Facebook and they have apparently missed me too. We're thinking of having some kind of reunion one day.

[Miss Prime Blue]

Well, i've been bullied all my life; a few people in my family are bullies and I usually try to avoid them at all costs. I've even dated guys who turned out later to be dbags and bullies.

In middle/high school, I was a chubby nerdy quiet girl. I think people disliked me because I didn't have an IQ of 4 and knew how to tie my shoes.

And because I looked like a shorter version of ugly betty, sans braces.

[SoulBlazerFan]

I have to disagree with whomever said anyone deserves bullying. Sure, you may know that one kid who rides on his high horse and thinks he's hot shit, but what's the point in bullying him? Usually, I found that people bullied because deep down they felt more pathetic than the person they bullied, no matter what their reason. It's rather sad to think about really- sometimes it's because their parents don't love them, or push them to be the best at everything, and they fear losing everyday.

It's easier to push another person around then face their own sad, horrid reality.

[arkisdabomb]

Growing up I was always a short and slightly overweight. I also was poor so I had second hand/thrift store clothes that were in utter disrepair. I spent most of my days in the corner reading books, and I moved around a lot.

And I was never bullied. My course of action was to royally fuck up the first person to even try to bully me to assert dominance more or less. So usually no one would bother me after the first day or two, and I was left well enough alone. I've probably caused about $700~$800 worth in hospital bills (if I was in the US) over my childhood. Am I proud of this? Not in the slightest. But I did what I had to do to.

[psychokind]

SoulBlazerFan wrote:

I have to disagree with whomever said anyone deserves bullying. Sure, you may know that one kid who rides on his high horse and thinks he's hot shit, but what's the point in bullying him? Usually, I found that people bullied because deep down they felt more pathetic than the person they bullied, no matter what their reason. It's rather sad to think about really- sometimes it's because their parents don't love them, or push them to be the best at everything, and they fear losing everyday. It's easier to push another person around then face their own sad, horrid reality.

well, I don't feel more pathetic than the persons I bullied and I'd say it's the same for most of my friends that bullied along.

I wouldn't say there's nobody that deserves bullying, since it's a common and primal human behaviour to socially exclude others. there has to be some meaning to that.

[Miss Prime Blue]

Not every bully bullies because they had a sad homelife, low self-esteem, or weren't bought a pony as a child.

Some bullies are just bored, have an unchecked ego, or skipped major chapters of the book entitled "how not to be a douche, for bullies".