Poll: Bullies..ahem, why?

[Ryuzix]

Wow am I the only one that was both?

Your not alone now.
I was in bully mode a few weeks ago, but I was bullying a bully who made fun of a middle eastern and he bullied a kid who had anger management problems. He then turned to me and...well... I still remember taekwando and I don't put up with shit. When the year adviser called me into her office, he got into more trouble than i did.
Ive been bullied in primary school though, I didn't do anything about it.
Been bullied in the first few weeks in high school. Not anymore, I've toughened up (but fore some reason I feel more Emo and dead emotionally.)
The difference between high school and primary school bullies: High school bullies have bruises to prove it.

 

[Space Spoons]

3. Sadism. Simply put, some kids just like to cause other kids pain. They're the same kids you'll see pulling the wings off flies and growing up to vote Republican.

That last part was just plain stupid.

Your opinion has been duly noted. It's the truth, though.

 

[Negativ Solution]

Attempts were made to bully me many times through school mainly because of my image and my love of black metal, to which everyone called me a GOTH of all things! It's not as if I was wearing eyeliner and moping around, I just had long hair. But simple people prove simple problems and with a little push they backed off, I was even dragged to a teachers office to be told "well done and don't let the bastards get you down".

I did indulge in some minor teasing with friends but mostly directed at jackasses who deserved it, other times I was guilty as some of these were more harsh but I have apologised to those that deserved it and all is forgiven.

I can say I am a much better person now and hate humanity for the disgusting mess we have made to the earth (I'm not a hippy either!)

 

[Spawn_Of_Kyuss]

As a kid I generally tried to keep out of the way and came to no harm. In Feburary I was on a military preparation course and the same applied there.

In the army though, bullying is a given. It works as a filter really - those who couldn't hack it on the course got torn apart by the group. Its human nature I guess.

 

[RAWKSTAR]

Yeah, I am a bully.
Its Sadism.

 

[P1p3s]

in primary school i was isolated, ostracised and picked on by my entire class, in secondary school there were people who were mean to me (all girls school - thats to be expected) but it was always level pegging, as in we were having a fight rather than me being ganged up on.

At college there was nothing like that at all but at uni one of the guys we lived with - well we all picked on him sorta. He was very immature for his age, and seemingly very sheltered, he had real pride and everything was a competition and he could never admit he was wrong. Another guy I lived with and I found ourselves having to hold each other back from being to mean to him and we even said we assumed he had always been bullied, I'm not a bully but I felt like it was dragged out of me.

I suppose what seperates me from real bullies is that I didn't like myself when I was mean, and once when we all kinda ganged up on him to admit he was wrong about something I could tangibly feel the group dynamic shift and the dark side of our personalities emerge. We all ended up really good friends, we just decided 'thats how he is' and it was just a funny querk to us in the end rather than an annoyance that we felt we had to point out or change all the time.

I think its disgusting that people think they have the right to demean anyone else.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I must admit I've been both.

 

[AndyVale]

Because it was jokez.

Actually I'm guessing that probably was the case. It doesn't stop in school, it happens throughout life and especially in later years I think that's it. Some people are just unintentionally hilarious and other people laugh at it.

I don't remember much to be honest. I was never afraid of being bullied, just of making an ass of myself. Two very different things. I don't remember ever deliberately bullying anyone, but I probably did without thinking about it.

 

[Nomad]

Both, though not that much of either.

Through ages 7-9, I was the high horse of my small, rural school. My class had a total of four other males, meaning my competition wasn't that big. I felt like the king of the world, though, and used to push the others up against walls just to demonstrate that I was stronger and all that crap. To me, it was the feeling of power and superiority that made me do it. It simply gave me a kick to know I was the biggest, baddest and strongest.

When I was 9, my parents got a divorce and I moved with my mother, though. And somewhere at that point I realized that other people have feelings too, and stopped. I ended up being so ashamed about how I had acted in school, that I made a 180 degree turn and become quiet and introverted instead... Leading to me being bullied at my new school. Huzzah. Only lasted for a year until we moved again, though, and since then I've been sort of in the clear.

I'm still ashamed of how I acted towards some of the others, though. And I think that'll haunt me more than it'll haunt them, on account of them probably having forgotten about me by now.

 

[Flour]

I'd love to choose "bullied" because it went on for 10 years(nothing physical) and nothing to stop it worked. Fighting would have made it worse because most of the time they were trying to get me to fight.(the one time I did fight, teachers just stood near it, drinking coffee)

Unfortunately in the last two years of be being bullied, I was with a group that picked on someone that was in some of the same classes. I never really joined the group, and even talked to him a lot, but the guy was an idiot and I hate it when the most obvious fake stories are presented as real.(those "friend of a friend" [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UrbanLegends?from=Main.UrbanLegend] stories..) Guess what the guy usually talked about as being real...

The year after it I went to the same school as a friend and that guy we picked on, that was also the time I realised that 'friend' was the one that started the bullying...(nearly punched him in the face when I found out he was the one who started it all)
At the end of that school year I was kicked out of school(with a 40 hour school week I'd miss 15-25 hours) and went to another school.
In that school slight teasing of someone didn't start until the last half year, but that guy began bragging about his "model" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_(person)] boy/girlfriend of which he had no pictures, not even on his phone.(now I think of it, I can't remember he even told anyone his/her name or if it was a guy or girl)

 

[Scarecrow38]

They do it because it's much easier to just go with the crowd, a major influence of which is society which identifies which social groups/ characteristics are 'cool' and which aren't.

Give someone a choice to stand up to their best friends and tell them they're treating a kid like shit and it's out of order or just ignoring/ insulting the kid as well to not rock the boat and I would bet money on which they would choose.

 

[Echolocating]

Rock on, man. I was actually always curoius about that kind of mindset; about how would the bully/bullied approach the issue from a parenting standpoint.

I wish you the best of luck with your kid. I don't know you, but you seem to have your head genuinely in the right place, and hopefuly he/she will do just fine.

Thanks. It was a big deal to my wife actually that our son is to never hit anyone for any reason. She had never been bullied nor had bullied others so when I told her of how my life was like, she thought it was a good thing for him to take martial arts. ;-) I'm okay with telling him to never start a fight, but always finish one.

When I look at my son, I see a lot of me in him and it's hard not to want him to have a better life.