Poll: Were you/Are you bullied in school?

[Keava]

No, never. Some tried, sure thing, but they changed their minds really quickly. I have way too high self-esteem to let other's bully me. Actually, you could say i bullied anyone who tried to bully me.

Then again, the scary chick that wears weird clothes, speaks her mind, openly argues with teachers during classes, and can kick you where it hurts without hesitation is rarely bullied. Despite never being the 'prom queen' type i actually had sort of respect from the rest of the school and if anyone would bully someone i liked usually me saying "Oi. Back off and leave him/her alone" was enough to stop it without turning the whole affair into a brawl.

Being quite sociable and willing to do crazy things for sake of fun also helps. Face it, outsiders that never even try to make friends will get bullied because they make natural victims. If you mumble 'sorry' each time someone pushes you, you will only be pushed more.

 

[Private Custard]

Yes, badly.

Even now, at the age of 31, I'd happily see all of them dead. Doesn't matter to me that they may be normal, nice human beings with families now. If I was grand overlord of the world, I'd reduce the entire town of Hemel Hempstead to a smoking, glass-filled crater in a heartbeat!

 

[Sven und EIN HUND]

There are some people at my school who are seriously just out to get people, and I have no idea why. I don't impose on anyone. The main perpetrator is the same guy who stuck his hand into a pot of acid in the metalwork room, after the teacher told us it was acid and not to touch it, mind you. And no, I am not joking.

 

[Jewrean]

Yes I was bullied. On my last year of high school I had to get up in front of the whole school and receive the award for biggest nerd. Yes the school actually let this happen and didn't care. It was voted by everyone in the year level and I received the highest votes for it.

On that day I only received two kinds of responses:
"It's only a stupid piece of paper. Hey Nerds are smart so you should be alright!"
&
"HAHA! You're a fucking Nerd! What a dork! Derp De Diddly Derp!"

If only Sniper Rifles were easily accessible in my country. Needless to say there would be many dead and skull-fucked teenagers in the streets on that day.

... ... ... lol

 

[Wardnath]

There are some people at my school who are seriously just out to get people, and I have no idea why. I don't impose on anyone. The main perpetrator is the same guy who stuck his hand into a pot of acid in the metalwork room, after the teacher told us it was acid and not to touch it, mind you. And no, I am not joking.

Should've seen the fuckheads at my school. They'd frequently spray their deodourant on their hands to the point where they'd get chemical burns. Seriously, I don't get why they'd do that, it looks painful, disgusting and you get a really terrible scar at the end of it.

 

[Jewrean]

Once Upon a time yes, then i took matters into my own hands when he started picking on others. I had to move schools after that little incident, not because of the bullying because that well and truly stopped after what i did. Unfortunately the bully's mum was my teacher..

She sounds like a dumb *****. I'm a teacher and 3 of my students have parents that work as staff at the school. If anything I come down even harder on them... ew that sounded odd. Rephrasing. Um... if anything I am more strict with them.

 

[Alcamonic]

I hated school, getting bullied on and off pretty much from 1st grade until 9th.
This causing me to suffer from depression, if only I could go back in time and kill the fuckwits that did it, there is no fairness is life, it just plain sucks.

 

[Unesh52]

Ugh, I hated middle school...

"Hive of scum and villainy" takes on new meaning in that place -- and that's just the administration. The kids are like that sand monster from the 6th episode.

I was bullied up until high school, where I more humanely just ignored, and occasionally patronized, though I hope unintentionally. Then I joined my school's theatre company and found common ground with other people, especially on the subject of video games. In retrospect, getting picked on in the lower grades was probably my fault a lot, or just bad circumstance (I didn't have friends for some stupid thing or another in kindergarten, so I never learned to be friendly -- I must have been insufferable sometimes).

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, there's a difference between being a bully and telling the class spaz to GTFO. As long as the things your saying are true and are actually the person's fault, it's not just "picking on them." If you want to make friends, you have to be at least not really annoying. Or gross. Or stupid. And I think most people can handle that. Even if it's hard (tourette's, autism), you still have to try to be accommodating or you don't get credit.

 

[Terminate421]

I was in middle school. God I hate that place. Then I just said fuck it and decided to beat the shit out of one of my bullies.

High school rolls around, only one bully attempted to make fun of me for about 2 days, until he realized that the entire class was on my side.

 

[GaijinAndrew]

Well, living in Romania it's kinda impossible to not be bullied. I mean, it isn't even called bullying here, because it's such a backwards ass country. Most people regard it as normal. Not too many cases though in which the ones who were bullied actually committed suicide or any other stuff like that, either way it's really F-ed up. For example I was called Satan for 4 years of highschool just because I listen to rock music. (don't even get me started on this subject because the music industry in Romania is ruled by an infectious bile-filled crap of a noise called "Manele" google it if you don't believe it can be that bad.) Either way yes, the whole bullying issue is screwed up, and many times the bullies don't even comprehend the damage that they are actually doing. So yeah... I was bullied in highschool, but I tried not to let it affect me, I try to think it actually made me even stronger. Today if someone insults me, I can deflect it like anything else.

 

[kebab4you]

I hear people getting bullied at school all the time but all threw my school years I haven't been once, find that very strange.

 

[Bohemian Waltz]

I was bullied a fair amount in early childhood, but never once had the stupidity of entertaining suicide like some of today's youth.

 

[Unit420]

9 years. Scars never heal completely but for those of you being bullied in school, remember that there are no bullies in a workplace.

 

[Light16]

well maybe at the start people tried since i'm a socially awkward person but well after i threw a chair at a bully across the classroom straight into his face i was more or less left alone

 

[SuccessAndBiscuts]

there are no bullies in a workplace.

Lies and deceit. There are bullies everywhere, the only way to deal with them is to be as much of an ass hole to them as they are to you.

The insult you? Insult them back louder/better.

Let nothing go unrebuked hell even start on them before they start on you ocasionally. Laugh at everything, even things they say about you. Don't take anything to heart, treat it as a joke, a bit of fun. Keep it up for long enough and they will stop bothering you. Hell you might even end up friends. Its tricky getting into this mindset at first but the more you do it the more natural it becomes.

The most important thing is don't set yourself up for a fall but NEVER BACK DOWN as long as it not something you are going to get physically hurt as a result of. In a fight winners can be hard to determine doesn't matter who came off worse as long as you left something for him to remember you by. Also fight dirty, learn to improvise weapons, but always keep a level head and make the other attack first.

In my experience physical bullying is always a follow on from psychological bullying, they know you will play the victim which makes you the target. The only exception is when you start to resist and they try and slap you down which may lead to a fight like above.

People are animals, pack logic and dominance, you can't always be the Alpha in every group but you sure as hell don't want to be the Omega.

 

[RanD00M]

No one really was/is bullied in my school. There are some jokes abound, but nothing offensive or such.

 

[liveslowdiefast]

Am bullied for my sexuality being Bi, But i have good friends so i don't give a shit.

 

[Fraught]

Since this is the Escapist, I imagine most were bullied (even though many of the replies say they weren't, which is surprising, given the poll numbers).

Now me? Well, to be honest, I've actually never been bullied. I mean, in earlier classes, I wasn't really athletic at all, my hair was often really greasy, I looked pretty drowsy and sleepy most of the time, and god damn, if I look at some old class photos, fuck me, my sense of fashion sucked balls. I looked horrible. Or at least I think I looked horrible now when I look back to the past.

With that being said, I wasn't really bullied. I was mostly the bully, though there were, like, two classmates that me and some of the other bullies constantly belittled. With that being said, there were others, and they were mostly the usual "uncool" people - fat, socially awkward, not as ready and willing to cuss all the time, and commit "fun", rule-breaking capers like we did. With that being said, there was one guy who we bullied for a thing I will probably never forgive myself for (and I'll leave it untold, it really makes me feel bad)

Now, as years went by, things changed. It's kind of odd how, even though I was kind of a bully, and a trouble child, I was still really good in literature (at that time using my own language, mostly), winning competitions and stuff, and back then, I didn't really have much access to a computer, but I didn't really go out that much. You probably won't guess it by yourself, but shit was fucked up for me. That probably may've swayed me over to the bully side in the first pace. And I don't really know how and when it all happened, but slowly, I started going more to the internet, developed a greater interest in writing, and video games, and even though I was a douchebag on the internet for years, at some point, being a douchebag just seemed so pointless, and bullying seemed so cruel, and I genuinely started caring for how people felt.

I have no fuckin' idea what brought this chance, but eh, this is long enough. I'll just say that while now I'm a much better person, even though I do spend a fair share of my free time on the internet (or at least on a computer), I'm still socially acute, went regularly to the gym last year, and started playing tennis this year again (for the third time in the last...4 years?) and get along well with everyone (including those I bullied, some of which are now really good friends of mine, among my class).

I was a really heavy set kid (I'm 19 and nearly four hundred pounds) so I got bullied for being fat, up until fourth grade, the teacher saw this kid, TJ, was picking on me. I was about to fucking cry when the teacher walked up and said loudly "I've got some stuff to do" the whispered to me "deal with this, I'll make sure you don't get any problems" At which point the entire class learned that when the 250lb. kid gets pissed off, he gets pissed off. I tackled my problem head on, and sat on his chest till he turned blue. To this day he flinches when I walk by.

Four hundred pounds?! Holy fucking shit, man. Holy shit.

[sub][sub][sub][sub]Heh, brought to you by Irony(tm), courtesy of my reply.[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

No, really. I'm kidding. I just wanted to make a joke contradicting what I talked about in my reply.

 

[Best of the 3]

I was a bit in primary school when I was about 10-11 years old. Luckily I grew taller than everyone else by a long way and no one deared to bully me when that happened.