[TOPIC] BULLIES!

Hmmm, in general, female bullies would focus on making you feel horrible about yourself... humiliation combined with negative judgements and but semi-privately and in ways that don't make them look like 'bullies' to the group.

Male bullies tend to be more direct - sure, they would enjoy some humiliation, but primarily they are more likely to try to get something from you like money or clothing. Also, male tend to put on a bullying display in front of a group/crowd and are libel to walk right by in a one-on-one situation.

Hope that helps!

Devdra

"The Midwife"
she'll steal your soul...

Aside from bullies just beating people up, throwing people headfirst into trash cans was popular at my high school.

Personally, I was never beaten up, but there were a couple of kids in junior high who would shine a laser pointer in my eyes every time I walked down the hall. One of them also claimed I had killed the class guinea pig (who had died of old age) in fourth grade because he knew I loved animals and that the claim would really upset me. In my experience with male bullies, girls are usually verbally abused and guys are usually physically abused, because the bullies were taught at home that it was wrong to hit a girl. I never got back at the people who bullied me.

Typical characteristics...they were usually bad students that teachers had pretty much given up on, so they felt they could do whatever they wanted. I was never friends with any bullies, but I often got the impression that their home life was not very stable. They would frequently come to school but not go to any classes, because they didn't want to be in school or at home. Of the particular group that bullied me (4 or 5 boys) I only know of one that graduated from high school.

Well besides just making fun, which is it's own special hell, I remember some boy slamming my locker door into me every time I was there. Until we moved to a small school very few people put together I was a twin, so they never knew my sister was the one fighting my battles. She went to my locker, let him do that to her then slammed his head in his own locker.... they had peer counseling which was them glaring at each other while another student tried to get them to talk. A chick decided I couldn't drink from the water fountain after PE, she didn't take me telling her I wasn't about to listen to her very well so PE was hell for about a week before she saw my sister, thought she was me and tried to trip her in the hallway. Kara tripped her instead and let her feel people laughing at her.

No one she ever messed with messed with me again so I'm pretty sure giving them a taste of their own medicine dealt with it pretty well.

A few of the people who bullied me didn't really have a nice home life.

"Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved." - W. Somerset Maugham

I was bullied fairly extensively in primary school. It's an all-girls school, so it was small things like ignoring you, pulling your chair away, making comments hat SEEM innocent, if it weren't for the tone, and scrawling all over my plate at the class party. That last one set me off. It was the year-end party during our last year and I jumped on the girl (she'd signed it off, stupid girl) and caught her in a chokehold, trying my damnedest to strnagle her. I had to be pulled off.

I reacted pretty badly to all of it. You know, road to hell, good intentions... I was due to go to a co-ed school for the first time after that for secondary school, and I was brought up in an environment where girls were the nice ones, so I decided that if I wasn't to be bullied I had to show people who's boss. I didn't go and trip people up on purpose for no reason, or anything like that. Rather, I tended to over react, and VERY violently. I have that rep stuck to me to this day, and have but to look to get people to shut up. For one, every time someone irritated me, I'd whack him. Literally. And HARD. I had this senior who'd call me shorty, and one day when I got fed up, I punched him in the solar plexus. The metal buttons on the uniform hurt my knuckle, but they hurt him more. Also, once I caught this guy looking at my hournal over my shoulder and I kicked him where it hurt. He was curled on the floor and the class was looking at me in horror when my form teacher walked in. Her jaw DROPPED. Of course, it seemed beside the point by then that I'd been aiming for leg as I always did and had missed. No one believed me anyway. I also got very good at grabbing the metal frame of the chairs and pulling up, dumping the poor sod on the chair onto the ground. It was all purely reactional (is this a word?) but I suppose it wasn't terribly mature. I don't know how people put up with me. There;s this one guy who really didn't know when to shut up, and I reached out and just swiped. That ws the time when I couldn't be arsed with cutting my nails and it wasn't till I was hauled up by our physics teacher to explain the scabs and scars on his arm that I realised I'd drawn blood. That was the day I really mellowed out. I mean, this guy didn't want to tell her who did it at first, until she really pushed. I still feel bad about it. So nowadays, just to satisfy the people who expect me to beat people up, I dispense the occasional punch on the arm, kick in the shin, stomp on the foot, and for the people who really irritate me, I've perfected the smack across the face that isn't painful enough to be a slap but is still damn humiliating. Still not the most mature of things, but frankly, I'm not articulate enough to deal with things otherwise, or mild-mannered enough to let things slide. I can safely say I've never since then drawn blood. Or threatened a guy's future offspring. Or brought anyone onto their faces.

In primary school,. I don't think anyone's really aware enough to notice a bully's psyche unless it's expressly pointe dout to them, but this one particular girl (the one I tried to strangle) I really didn't get. She'sreally popular because she's really funny. Even back then. People still don't understand why I don't like her. I was so thrilled to be having her as a classmate, becaus ebefore it was an I know who you are okay whatever kinda thing. For some reason, she just started laying it on me, making fun of me and just antagonising me. I don't know, maybe she needed someone to make fun off to display her towering wit, or something. God knows.

There is no sin except stupidity.
- Oscar Wilde

I got bullied mostly in middle school, high school it kind of slowed down.

Kids are very good about doing stuff when teachers aren't looking. Things got thrown at me on the bus, (pieces of trash, broken pencils, ect.) Always when the driver wasn't paying attention. One girl stole stuff out of my locker and stuck a big wad of gum on the combination lock, so I had to clean it off to get in. She was a great liar too - always found a way to convince the teachers that she was not involved.

Something else to consider (if you haven't already planned it out) - what does your character do that gets him to be bullied? New kids usually aren't picked on just because they're new - they're picked on because they're found to be different in some way. (Too oblivious, too loud, too sensitive, the list goes on.)

My best friend in high school was bullied several times daily, at first because everyone thought he was gay, and eventually (after someone outed him) because they knew he was.

The bullying took several forms -- the first was just verbal taunting; yelling names at him as he passed in the hallway, snickering at him during class, various insulting things under their breath, etc etc etc. That was annoying, but easy enough to ignore. Also, rumours -- somehow he was gay, I was a lesbian, and we were also having sex with each other, all at once. That was more of an eyerolling situation.

There was also a lot of immature prank sort of thing -- finding out his locker combination so they could switch the lock, or putting glue/paint over the lock so he couldn't open his locker, stealing his stuff, etc. When we sat together they used to throw things at us -- food, crumpled up paper, whatever they had on hand.

When I wasn't around, it escalated to the physical level -- shoving, tripping, 'accidental' elbow in the side or foot stretched out between desks. In gym class they used to try their hardest to hit him in the face with balls, because he wasn't allowed to wear his glasses on the floor and he was almost blind without them. There was a lot of physical abuse in that class that they covered up by saying it was 'friendly athletic competition' or whatnot.

Eventually they took it off-site and harassed him at home. They found out where he lived, and then groups of people (2 or 3 vehicles at a time, usually) would drive out to his house at 3 in the morning and lay on the horn non-stop until his father called the police on them, and then they'd speed away. This went on daily for almost two weeks until they were caught. They weren't charged with anything, but they were warned that if they or anyone else did anything similar, they would be charged. So that stopped that.

The worst, though, was this guy that he was sort of friends with, and the one he came out to. The guy at first said it was fine, then said he didn't want to hang out anymore, then told the whole school that my friend was gay and had been sexually harassing him -- and even got the principal on his side; she said that if my friend ever spoke to him again, she would suspend him for harassment. It was all made up, apart from my friend being gay, but that didn't matter.

After we graduated, my friend was instructed to write a letter to the guy by his therapist (whom I think is a quack, because really, WORST IDEA EVER), telling him how he felt about the whole thing. So what did the guy do? Printed off a hundred copies and circulated them around the school so people could STILL laugh, even though my friend didn't go there anymore. It was the stupidest thing ever.

I had people attempt to bully me through high school (I say attempt because I didn't care). It was mostly girls, who would do everything from call me ugly to insult my clothes (I was self-conscious and wore cast-offs from my father), to insinuate things about my sexuality etc. They would openly mock me in class, getting to the point where when I had to give presentations, they would talk all the way through them. I was annoyed at the immaturity rather than hurt by their attempts.

The one time I was bullied after high school occurred in my third year of university, while I was on exchange in Japan. It was, funnily enough, coming up to NaNo and I was excited. I put a note on my door talking about what NaNo was, and explaining why I'd be busy during November. For some reason that set off this group of girls who lived on my floor, even though I'd never actually spoken to any of them. They would stand in front of my door and talk loudly about what a freak I was and all sorts of things; after about a week of this, when I finally got fed up and opened my door and followed them into the kitchen, there was a whole group of them talking about how I was a freak and strange and (again) a lesbian (as though that were some sort of pejorative). That shook me up more than anything else because I didn't even know these girls, and it wasn't as though we were in high school anymore -- it was like I'd been transported back in time.

I don't know anything about these people's home lives, unfortunately, so I can't help you there.

I have found that the less people know about you, the better. It's less ammo to use against you. I've developed a kind of reticence that isn't reeally the best of ideas. Once I adopted two kittens and when one died, my best friend only found out when she read my blog a couple weeks later. My parents rarely know what's really going on. They mean well, but you know how it is. Anyway, a lot of a snide comments in primary school were directed at the fact that I liked to draw but really wasn't any good at it (wasn't until a friend took me under her wing a few years ago and taught me the basics of human proportion). That led to not showing people hwat I've done (Writing or drawing), and besides, my parents don't really approve of the writing. I spent so much time writing in school I failed nearly everything. And, of course, my dad's the sort who will go yes, yes, yes, but really, he doesn't believe that you should get a degree for any other reason than to get a better job or a promotion. He doesn't really get that there are things I want to learn in university. So to him, and all those who don't understand, November is a competition, where if I hit 50,000 words, I win. These are terms that are understood by the people that surround me.

There is no sin except stupidity.
- Oscar Wilde

What are the typical characteristics you’ve noticed about bullies? What about their home life?

This may be stating the obvious, but I believe that bullies have been or are being bullied themselves, either by family members or by other school kids. I think bullying is a learned behavior. Put simply, Dad picks on big brother Eric who picks on little brother Jimmy, who is the 3rd-grade classroom bully.

I obviously may be wrong, but I highly doubt that all of the bullies I've encountered were abused themselves. They don't act out of pure maliciousness all the time; it's usually to get a cheap laugh or impress a group of friends, not because they hate the victim or because they can. It may sound cynical, but some people are just jerks. A few might have been bullied themselves, but I knew some of the people and knew that they weren't.

In grade school I was mostly just ignored and whatnot. Y'know that cooties thing, where you touch someone who has cooties and have to slap it onto an uninfected person to get rid of it? Pretty much that from grade four to six. And it really sounds lame in hindsight, but it was hurtful then. Only a bit of physical bullying, like a kick in the shins if I walked or sat too close. And a lot of, "'why are you so weird? That's why nobody likes you."

High School has mostly just been "holy sh*t, is that a girl or a guy?", followed by a colourful mix of words. Food smeared on my locker (or spit on the lock--yech) writing or carving on my locker, gum in hair, stuff thrown, tripping, etc.

It's mostly stopped now, though. I had a group of about twelve people I didn't even know at the door of my science class being assholes, and out-of-the-blue decided that the best course of action would be to throw my head back and start laughing like a lunatic. It worked, but being thought a lunatic isn't much better :/

Hope that helped.

I was bullied, you know how I got back at them? PLAYGROUND WAR! We organised two armies and beat the crap out of each other.

Patrick aka. Lyrandar

NaNoWriMo: The New Model Army 2008 [50 004/50 000]

Script Frenzy: Incubation Period (Star Trek Fan Script) [0/100]

I wasn't really bullied, but I had a bad experience in sixth grade. This kid told one of my best friends that I had been talking about her behind her back, which I hadn't, and so I kind of lost almost all of my friends because in sixth grade everything's so melodramatic.

Then, two years later, I had to go into my algebra class during another period to make up a test and I was sitting right next to him. And he spoke to a girl behind him, "Hey, remember in sixth grade when we made up that lie." Yeah I thought it was pretty stupid and I knew he was doing it just to bother me.

So I found out he liked this really popular guy (everyone knew he was gay), and so I told the guy that he liked about it and embarrassed him pretty badly I guess. That pretty much ended that whole little war, but I guess getting back at them depends. It's either a physical retaliation, right then and there, or an emotional one that may take a little time to build up.

"You're not the only one, so get up!"

The old "bullies have no self esteem" cliche is often true, though as been said it doesn't have to be that they were bullied themselves. It can be more trying to look cool and not having the guts to not follow the group picking on someone, or being after putting the people "beneath" them down to make themselves look better. If you're different and/or react interestingly (unfortunately, as a kid, I was both), they'll pick on you more. "Different is bad! It's not like me, so I'm scared! I know, I'll be a total git, that'll make me feel tough :D."

And yep, girls tended to be the catty ones. That actually bothered me more, at least someone beating me up would have been concrete, as opposed to a bunch of niggling cruel words. They also all had the sense to put on the sweet well-behaved girl act when the teachers were watching, so getting them in trouble was near-impossible.

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I was bullied really badly in school. The worst thing to happen was during a science lesson when we dissecting a pigs heart and one of the girls cut a piece off and put in my bag. The other was the day I came home and found chewing gum in my hair, you have to understand that at 14 my hair reached my butt and I was completely justified in crying when it had to be cut to my chin. Before that it was always psychological. They always did it in a group, it was never just one girl on there own, but to be fair I could of handled just one girl on her own. I'd walk from one class to another and and get some girls knocking into me or making me drop stuff. I had things thrown at me and was called every name under the sun.

In the end I had all 6 girls expelled from school. The Head saw my mental health and ability to learn in a safe environment as more important than them.

In my case it was purely just out of enjoyment on their part and jealousy for the girl who started it all. Not all bullies have been bullied themselves, well these hadn't. Its also hard for a teacher to spot it if they're not looking for it. It was my mum who noticed and that was only because I drew into myself and was petrified to leave the house in the morning, at one point I started to skip school just so I wouldn't have to face it.

I don't consider myself a bully, nor do I consider those I was friends with bullies, but I imagine others may have thought we were so. Even between each other, my friends and I have a biting, sarcastic sense of humor, and we frequently rip into the world around us and the people in it. Example:

Junior year in highschool, lounging in the courtyard during lunch. We were shooting the breeze, my friends and I, sitting in a circle in some comfortable chairs. Through the hallway in front of us walks some really trashy, overweight girl. I have nothing against heavy people; I'm not exactly skinny, after all. However, she was one of those fat girls who thought it was a good idea to wear tight, short tanktops that let her rolls hang out. It was, to put it simply, disgusting.

Also, for some reason, Finding Nemo was on my mind. She's walking, I catch the attention of my friends, and cup my hands around my mouth.

"Dooooo yoooooooouuuu speeeaaaaaaaak whaaaaaaaaale?"

The ones who got the reference (all of them) laughed hysterically. It was mean, it was sharp, and she had it coming. We're the same way with everyone, stranger or friend. Did that make us bullies? Well, maybe, although if you were a good person who didn't do anything openly stupid we didn't have much to say about you. We were definitely more social and psychological than physical. Why'd we do it? I wasn't abused as a kid, I wasn't bullied. I've always been popular, even when I wasn't so snarky. My friends don't have self-esteem issues, their home lives are fine. It's just our sense of humor and it amused us.

Thanks for sharing everyone.

I was looking for similarities to what I went through to see what drives bullies.

I had been living in Europe for a couple of years and when I came back to New York everyone in the new school thought I was a foreigner. I was quiet kid with only a few friends. Despite being a big kid, I was picked on a lot.

Once a couple of bullies started in with me it wasn’t long before others jumped on board and everything escalated.

It was relentless: knocking books out of my hands and kicking them, breaking into my locker and scattering the contents the length of the hall, breaking into my gym locker and stuffing my gym clothes in the toilet. Then came the physical abuse. I was spat on, and even hit in the eye with an icy snowball just as I entered the school – nearly blinding me. I was ganged up on and beaten unconscious – off school grounds – by a group of 6 guys. One of them I thought was a friend. Talk about betrayal. The assistant principal in school was no help. He made matters worse.

It was open season on me. Every bully and tough-guy wanna-be wanted to prove themselves by knocking down the big kid. They always moved in packs. I was chased to and from school. I took different ways home every day to avoid ambushes.

I got to my breaking point. What they didn’t know is that in Europe I was often challenged, because everyone wanted to see how a “Yank” fought. Luckily for me, the bullies there only came at me one at a time. I learned to fight in those European schools. I became vengeance. I was obsessed with getting back at them. The hunted became the hunter. I watched them in and out of school. I observed their patterns of what they did and where they went and took notice when they were alone.

I was the one now setting up the ambushes. Most of them were wusses when I caught them alone, but that didn't stop me from kicking their asses. A few were not scared and tougher to beat. The ones who were the bad-asses of larger groups typically had crappy home lives, their followers came from average backgrounds.

It took me two years, but I got every single one of them back. I beat down every-single-one. I received a lot of detentions and a few school suspensions, but it was worth it. By the end of my junior year in high school – no one messed with me ever again.

I’m still not sure what drives the bully mentality. I was never like that. I have always supported the underdog.

~W~
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I definitely have experience with bullies. *shudders*

Experiences with girl bullies:

- One forged a note that said I was going to shoot up my elementary school.
- I got "jumped" by a bunch of girls in elementary school, as well - one boy but mainly a bunch of girls. They were angry because of some bizarre reason - I didn't even know them - and so they surrounded me as I was leaving school and the boy starting punching me while the others yelled all this stuff at me. Eventually this girl I knew came over and helped fight them off.
- In middle school, basically same deal - I had a lot of girls calling me a lesbian, accusing me of having sexual feelings for them, looking up their skirts, etc.
- And of course just calling me ugly, four-eyes, a school shooter, etc. That was big - "you're gonna shoot up the school! everyone run and hide" - bleh.
- In high school, it got slightly more discreet. Boys and girls would both falsely report me to the nurse for head lice and the dumbass nurse would then call me down and check me for lice, which I didn't have, of course. I say of course because this happened at least two or three times. This was all because in elementary school I had been accidentally "flagged" for lice because the nurse was a dumbass and mistook some piece of lint for a lice egg. Of course, everyone saw that and seemed to forget the part where they figured out I didn't have lice and sent me back in. The whole checking-everyone-for-lice-in-front-of-everyone-else thing is pretty humilating as it is.
- I also got falsely reported for cutting myself, which I don't do. I found out about this when I got called down to some counselor's office and she went, "I know about the cutting." And I'm thinking, "how can you? I sure don't!" o_O

Boy bullies:

- In elm. school, I used to get thrown off of all kinds of playground equipment. So, generally, physical stuff from guys.
- When we got to middle school, guys got slightly less physical but still "big and tough", like a boy threatened to shoot me if I walked by his house, he shoved me into lockers, and some of his friends threw sticks at me on the way home from school.
- By the time high school rolled around they mainly just yelled insulting names.

"Man is more than fire tamed." - Nick Berg

As a thought on what drives bullies, in my experience I think they just find it funny. It's something to do and they don't really look at the victim as a person, but for their amusement value.

"Man is more than fire tamed." - Nick Berg

I had a sort of weird bullying experiance in about 5th grade. Me, my friend, and two girls I didn't know very well were put together in this little group of four desks for the school year, and of course we ended up talking almost every day. At first the one girl just thought I was annoyingly repetitive, and told me so often- but I have to admit, I really was. She started giving me notes that were sort of mean, but also sort of joking at the same time- for instance, she'd usually make fun of my name and there'd be these multiple choice things with options like "you're ugly," "stop talking," and "I like cows," and they'd all be circled. Whenever we'd work on school stuff in the groups, she'd always blow off whatever I said- once again, I was overly picky, so I don't completely blame her- and eventually she started picking up some of my stuff and throwing it in the little trash can near our desks. I would just stand up and take it out, and we'd go back to normal for a little while, then she'd do it again, and there were a few instances where she would just bop on my head like she was playing the drums or something.

The weird thing is, at the time, I never thought of it as bullying. Like, after giving me one of those notes one day, I specifically remember retaliating with a note of my own, in which I made fun of her name and did the same multiple choice thing, and she thought it was hilarious- not just "oh, you think you're being mean, stop trying, haha," but like "that's really funny!" There were a lot of times when we were perfectly fine together, and it wasn't just when the teacher was watching. There was even a few times I helped comfort her- this one time she had gotten in a fight with the other girl in our group, and she was crying because the other girl had said she was poor, and I was reassuring her that it was okay, and that she wasn't poor and that no one thought she was. From what I know about her home life, she's not neglected or abused or anything. Even now, looking back at my post, I'm sort of justifying her- not cause I'm trying to make it out not to be a big deal, but because I really think about it that way.

Hmm. This may not help, but a lot of times, if you're bullied at school, you're bullied after you leave school by the same people, especially if you live in a small town. Bullying is inherited as well, so you get younger kids bullying the same person as the older kids used to. Often also, if horrible rumour starts by a bully at school, it doesn't just stay in the school; teachers, parents and people in the community often hear of it and believe it as well.

Also, much of the time, teachers and parents won't help. Bullies usually aren't stupid, they often make themselves a failsafe so that they won't get into trouble, such as running and telling people that the person they were bullying was bullying them.

Often people will tell the one being bullied very unhelpful things like: you must be imagining it; ignore them and they'll get bored and go away; it's just because they like you; are you sure you didn't say something mean to them?; just stand up for yourself; pull yourself together; give them a good smack and they'll leave you alone, ect. This will often come from teachers, and even parents.

Another aspect of bullying is the fact that it's not always that the girls are the verbal abusers and the boys the physical, there are often crossovers. This is especially true if the bullies consist of both girls and boys. If this is the case, it's more likely that girls will wait to ambush the person they are bullying somewhere outside of school, wheras, boys will just wait for a place where teachers are out of earshot.

Bullying does not just stay in the school grounds. If a person is being bullied at school, often it extents outside of school as well, so that the victim does not feel safe even after they've gone home.

In some cases, a person being bullied will have a 'friend' who likes them outside of school, but will join in with the bullies in school out of self preservation. Often bullies will recruit other classmates in the same way to bully their intended victim.

Often the majority of children in the school can be in on the bulllying, due to bully recruitment. This includes younger and older classes. Usually the victim's whole class will be in on the bullying, so much so that the grades of the victim fall.

This is all of course a case of severe bullying, usually bought out because the victim is very talented and smart, or pretty and smart, ect. Anyway, it's mostly because of severe jealousy.

Hope this helped.

My bulling experiences:

I moved from up north to a middle school in Florida. These girls in choir were making fun of me for wearing a belt mom gave me to make my oversized choir dress uniform not look so bad...they called me fat and ugly and stupid and right when I was about to cry I burst out that they were going to hell!

They both froze and back pedaled...saying they weren't and even kinda apologising...I was stunned to realize I suddenly felt like I had the power in the situation. That was when I realized the south took their religion VERY VERY seriously.

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Telling obvious lies about a person, like going up to a good looking person and saying "So and so thinks you're hot and wants to blah blah blah" and it wounds by pulling more people into bullying (since the approached person usually rejects the bullee)
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There was a dead kitten in a lunch box incident....(it was already dead)...

A girl on the bus had a maxi-pad suck in her hair by a female gang of bullies and when I stood up for her I was stalked after getting off the bus around the school until classes started (with them threatening to beat me up).

Being tied up with a jump rope(once to a telephone pole/me and once to a neighbors fence/bustop kid) and then made fun of.

Hmm...I was bullied as a kid a little for being fat and having a weird name. During about 5 months in like 6th grade I was kind of a bully to one kid at the bus stop....I was dealing with a mom/stepdad domestic violence thing at home and for some reason this kid at the bus stop would annoy me and when I would snap at him he never did anything back and in a way it kind of evolved into some kind of sad and hurtful stress relief.

Later I felt really bad... and realized all the bullies that bullied me probably had something similar happen. I never thought I could forgive the jerks until that moment and I forgave the whole lot of them.

I don't think that's true at all - it may apply to some bullies, but not all, or even most. One of the bullies at my primary school was a borderline-obese, totally spoiled only-child and also one of the class high-achievers (we both later qualified for the same grammar school). I think he picked on other kids because he was bigger than them, and had never been properly disciplined in his life. I was on-and-off friends with him (his mother was friends with my mother), so I'm pretty sure he wasn't abused in any way.

The only experience I can offer is my own, so here goes;

I once befriended a girl in high school and introduced her to my group of friends because at the time, she seemed nice, we had things in common, and she'd drifted from her old friends from junior school.

I think this may be quite typical of female bullies, but it was purely mental, and so subtley-done that at times I didn't even realise I was being insulted, and my other friends certainly never noticed (or pretended not to - even then one of my former best friends sided with her over everything.)
I was a straight-A student, and didn't follow on with the popular trend of covering my face with make-up (I was still 11/12 at the time and couldn't understand it at all). She was quite clever, an only child and very spoiled. I guess the grades thing and the fact that I wasn't willing to conform made her see me as some kind of rival...? I don't know..

This girl almost immediately established herself as the 'leader' of our small circle; she made regular comments about how I'd be pretty if I wore make-up, and also stabs about how I could do with going on a diet. She also put me under immense pressure to have a boyfriend and gave me trouble for working hard at school, to the point that I did actually crack and took a week off, before my mother forced me to tell her what was wrong.

She would also follow up this barrage of insults and backwards compliments with periods of being exceptionally nice to me, so I was confused beyond belief (especially being the naiive child that I was; I kept thinking I'd over-analysed the whole thing.)

It took me around two or so years to ditch her - I outright told her I wasn't putting up with her anymore, and made some very close friends who treated me a million times better.

Looking back on it now it was a time I could have done without - although it did wisen me up to the real world a lot - but I guess I was just a very naive and influential pre-teen. :)

"Sanity is such a borgeois state of being."
NaNo 2007 - Luckless - I'll return to you one day!
NaNo 2008 - Project Teth - WON!!

While there are many reasons why kids bully I think one of the main reasons is ignorance. When we were kids we were ignorant. We didn’t think or care about other’s feelings and we did things without concern for the consequences. I also think that some bullies are just naturally mean spirited and will probably become very cruddy adults. I’m sure you know some adults that are just simply terrible people. It’s born into them. Some bullies reform and become okay people into adulthood. I’ve met one of my previous bullies who didn’t even remember how he treated me but did admit he was a pretty stupid kid.

I was bullied and ridiculed constantly while in school for my weight. Heaven help any who have a really obvious flaw like being overweight. It’s even worse when no one else is like you. I was probably the heaviest person in my age range at my school at the time I was attending. There’s something about being different that makes people want to lash out at you. Somehow your difference threatens their world. There’s something disquieting about your existence and like a scared animal they strike. That’s my personal theory at any rate. Your mileage may vary.

I was never beat up or seriously harmed. However I was often threatened to be harmed (which for some reason was always supposed to take place after school) but never actually was. I think part of that might be due to having some unknown benefactors make sure it didn’t happen. Even though there were a great number of people that didn’t like me there were a few people I didn’t know very well that would approach me every so often and tell me to stick up for myself. People that never made fun of me and would often display concern. I’m not sure why I never got to know them. They might have been my friends if I did. One guy even gave me a crash course on how to street fight in case the need arose.

I agree with the folks that say that female bullies tend to go for humiliation and making you feel terrible about yourself. I had some very attractive girls pretend to like me and ask me to date them. Then just as I was about to give in they’d tell me they were joking and call me names and list off the reasons why no girl would want me (most of the reasons were weight related). I actually started telling people that I wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend because somehow I thought that would make them stop bringing up the subject. However that really came back to bite me because then people thought I was gay. That just made people ask me questions like “why don’t you like girls?” and similar repeatedly.

I also agree with the folks that said male bullies do it to impress a group. The group can be small too. It doesn't have to be the whole classroom or school. I was only seldom bullied in private or when no one noticed. One person, we'll call him Mike, used to poke me in the stomach and ask me things like "Does that hurt? Can you even feel that through your flab?", Most of the time when that was noticed other kids would tell me to stand up for myself and hit him. I never hit anyone for making fun of me. I tried my hardest to ignore everything. Just in case anyone wants to know, that doesn't work. They will keep doing it no matter how much you seem unaffected. In fact the more you try not to let your emotions show the more they will do it. It's all for the reaction. Bullies are capable of being very persistent. They excel at never letting up.

Other than the poking I was mostly just called names. But believe me that’s enough. Though I can remember a few instances where people would grab my stuff and make me chase them because they found it amusing to make a fat kid run. They knew it was hard for me and they knew I couldn’t keep up. Many times the fact that I didn’t stand up for myself was taken advantage of. From experience I can’t say if standing up for yourself makes a difference. In hindsight I’ve often thought that it does though and I wish I had done it.

The teasing eventually got so bad that I didn’t go to high school. My mom homeschooled me for high school instead. The teasing had affected me psychologically to the point where I wanted to commit suicide. Where I would quite seriously rather get hit by the school bus rather than ride it. I’ve always been too nice for my own good. I give everyone more chances than they rightly deserve. Maybe I’m a better person for never having hit someone for calling me fatso. Or knocking out a few teeth because I don’t like being poked in the belly like the pillsberry dough boy. But I regress.

Something important I should tell you if you are seriously writing about this subject. For years I wanted revenge. I thought of every terrible way to get back at a number of key individuals; most of them violent. However now that I'm wiser more grown up and nearly 2 decades past those times I think all I would want now is an apology. "Hey, man I remember you from middle school. I was such a jerk to you. I know I can't really make up for all that but I just want to say I'm sorry for putting you through hell. I know you didn’t deserve that. I was just a stupid kid. I can understand that you might hate me forever but I just needed to tell you that." If I got an apology like that I would be so grateful. I don't need to see them harmed or dead; just an apology.

Now granted your character may not be as forgiving as me. If you want to write a revenge story I implore you not to write another Columbine tragedy. No one wants to read fiction that reads like an account of that terrible day. I heard that Dillon Klebold and Eric Harris shot that school up to get back at all the people that made fun of them and to teach them a lesson. Don’t turn your protagonist into someone like that. People will not identify with a killer or have empathy for your character. My reaction is far more realistic especially after nearly 20 years of it not mattering anymore.

Didn't have time to read all the other comments, sorry if anything repeats.

1. Bullying incidents.

Obviously; calling profanities after the bullied kid, making fun of his or her clothing, hair style, bag, anything they can possibly comment on.

Throwing things; from paper balls to chunks of eraser, to grapes (I've seen this happen; the grapes were splattered all over the wall behind the kid, and the teacher didn't do much about it.)

Reflecting sunlight off a ruler into the kid's eyes so they can't see the board, can't do work, get headaches (this works in classrooms when the bullies sit near the window and the bullied kid near the opposite wall.)

Trip them, push them, kick them and hit them. Shove them aside every time they pass eachother.

Girls coming up to him saying things like "want to be my boyfriend?" in a flirty way, which leaves the kid confused, and with no correct answer to give before being taken down by the onlookers.

Rip their homework. When they sit somewhere and work; go up to them and tear their homework into pieces.

in the gym locker rooms: stealing clothes, hiding clothes, throwing around the kid's shoes, putting his things under the shower, etc

Pulling down their pants in a public place, such as the cafeteria.

It's sad how many different ways of being mean to people there are!

2. Characteristics of bullies

They thrive in groups. Get them alone and they've got much less to say. (Maybe he can go after them one by one?)

They love the attention they get when they tear other people down.

They are easily bored, or easily distracted, and always need something to do.

This all differs, though, from bully to bully... so that's a difficult one.

3. What would you do?

Ignore them, however difficult that is. Push back. Ask myself : to what extent can they physically attack me without them getting into trouble? What more can they do if I push/hit/kick them right back in a crowded hallway? Change seats to make sure they don't have a chance to throw things without hitting the teacher as well (front of class). Etc etc. Get classes changed so you're not with them.

If all else fails: Talk to someone; a tutor, a counsellor, parents.

I don't know, I've never really been bullied. I've seen friends get bullied, quite badly, when I was a kid, and back then I reacted quite strongly and engaged in actual fistfights with the bully to get it to stop (he started by hitting my friend XD). This was primary school, though. I still stand up for my friends when it is needed, though not so physically ^^

I do not think I'd get physical revenge on the bullies afterwards; I'm more about defending myself at the moment that someone attacks me, than attacking someone a while after the initial problem. I wouldn't forgive, and I wouldn't forget, but I'd wait for a valid oppertunity before getting back at them (eg if you meet one of them outside of school and he/she comments on you).

Good luck with the story ^^

Hope this is of some help.

A new form of bullying these days involves phone or internet bullying. There was a Frontline program on internet behavior among kids which was pretty shocking. Kids ganging up on someone on line and sending horrible messages to them after pretending to be their friend. The theory is that kids that would otherwise not be bullies are getting into it because it isn't as direct as face to face bullying. There have been victims of this who suicided.

I've also heard about boys pretending to want to go out with a girl, and encouraging her to send him sexy pictures and then spreading the pictures around among his friends.

I am 33 but I remember getting bullied from a young age until I was 16. It has taken me years to get over it.

One kid at secondary school had a really bad home life (parents were divorced and he took it out on everyone else) and I found out a year ago through a website called "Friends Reunited" that he was having psychotherapy. During my time at that school my life was really f****d up!

I remember one incident where I got him back. It was English class and we all had to write a short story. We then had to read each others and write comments. This kid wrote my name and a bad comment against virtually every story. When I recognised the handwriting I knew it was him but I denied it when the teacher asked me. He then said nobody could leave the classroom until someone owned up. God, he was so embarrassed.

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In my experience, (some) bullies come from the kind of home where the parents think that their little darlings can do no wrong. This kind of parenting rarely produces solid citizens. They feel like they're entitled to whatever they want, even if it happens to be yours!

I was bullied, at different times, by both boys and girls. They either wanted something - school supplies, lunch money, homework done - or were just doing it for kicks. Twice I was injured badly enough to be sent home, and still the school did nothing. So I told the bad guy du jour "I have an untraceable poison, and no one will ever know what happened to you!" Thank you, Agatha Christie! Well, word got back to our (4th grade) teacher, and *I* was punished. Being covered with bruises was apparently no excuse for my behaviour.

I've never thrown a punch, myself. My mum used to say, "Why don't you just punch 'im in the nose? Most bullies are wimps, and the sight of their own blood is a good lesson for them." But it just didn't seem like *me*. I guess modern mothers are Not Allowed to go around advocating violence. :/

***edit: Recently a dear old friend of mine - the nicest, kindest guy, and I've know him since we were 6 - mentioned to me and a couple of other old friends an occasion when *he* did something 'bullying' in class, merely because some other, supposedly 'cool' kids goaded him into it for laughs (as an exercise of their power no doubt). He told us how he still felt bad when he thought of it, even while his 'child' memory still though the look on the guy's face was funny. I was stunned, and glad I knew nothing about it at the time, when it would have upset me a lot. (When you're a kid people are still 'good' and 'bad' in your eyes.) One of the other people he was telling reacted by saying, "Well, that kid used to bully a lot of us... he deserved it!" and that also surprised me, because it was all so long ago. Bullying casts a long shadow in people's lives, seeing that side of human nature. Some people overcome the bitterness, but others are forever affected in how they view others, how they can trust.

November 27th: The Alphasmart I ordered on ebay at the end of September arrived today. : /

All through elementary school (K-9) bullying was pretty constant - shoves, punches, kicks. That was the part I worried about - quickly decided the words didn't matter, I didn't care about the opinion of anyone at that school.

The teachers were worse than useless - if they did anything they punished both parties, saying "it takes two to fight." I can remember one time a teacher came down to the office and said "You can't punish him (me), he got attacked from behind and just defended himself" - because that's the only time in nine years that happened.

Other kids seldom helped - but there were more likely to than teachers.

What worked for me was learning Karate; then it was navigating a high wire. How to apply enough force to get them to back off, without getting into too much trouble.

I also wouldn't stand around and watch someone else get beaten up. The first fight I really won started that way. There was a kid who attacked me a few times; at first I couldn't take him, then we fought to a draw and he gave me less trouble. One day he was stuffing a much smaller child into a garbage can; I told him to stop. A dozen or more other kids were just watching, by the way. I won that fight, he didn't come after me again - just words, which I ignored.

I don't know what motivates bullying; I was never asked for money (and would never have given in anyway). It seemed to be mostly about kicks. People do it because they find it fun.

People talk a lot about jealousy, how it's the smart kids that get bullied... but I never saw any sign that academic prowess was seen as something to be jealous of. In any case, I wasn't really at the top of the class until I got to high school anyway, and it was in grade school that I had to be constantly watching my back. Constantly - violence could start any time, in class, on the way to or from school...

Society would never tolerate in our work places the constant violence that goes on in our schools.

Strangely, I had the exact opposite experience, though that could just be me. During middle school, there was a group of guys that verbally abused me on the school bus. Constantly. Without fail. "Reading girl!" isn't such an insult the first time, or even the second. But when it's used incessantly for FOUR YEARS, it builds a lot of resentment. "You buy your clothes at thrift stores, right?" is another easy jab at the poor kid. When you don't respond, they generally go for the narration. "Ooh, look! She mad, now. Don't want to get Reading Girl mad. She's gonna hit you with her book!" "Whatcha readin', Reading Girl?" Other vaguely insulting nicknames were "Cleopatra", "Clarence", and "Clarence the Demon". I don't know what the relevance of these was, exactly, but that didn't dull the sting. Shoving, taking my things (generally books), throwing them where a ten-year-old girl couldn't reach, jeers and laughter.

My revenge: I went through a phase when I was about twelve/thirteen when I became incredibly violent. I was sick and tired of being picked on, and I fought back. I slapped at least three guys (once in front of a teacher, who didn't say anything at all, but I had always been a teacher's pet), bit one's arm until he bled, and kicked a boy in the head (I was sitting down at the time. His face hit the bus window, and it was lucky it didn't crack). Mostly after that phase (which lasted about a year), I was left alone.

...Until...

By high school I was thicker-skinned, learned to avoid people that set off my radar. Also on the bus (I went to a school that offered advanced classes, so the people I saw during school hours generally weren't as uncouth), a girl wanted to sit next to me. Some background: by this time I had been riding this same bus for five years. The bus driver knew me by name and I sat in the seat directly behind him, and chatted with him on the ride. I always sat alone, and it wasn't as if there weren't other seats. One of her friends had been assigned to the front for bad behaviour, and that was the only reason she wanted to be in the front. I ignored her, and when she tried to move my backpack, held it in place. Perhaps I was instigating her, but at the time I just wanted to be left alone. This was maybe a few months into the year.
It was early January when she got her revenge. She got off the bus at my stop one Friday afternoon, and as I was walking toward my house, shoved me down on asphalt. I scraped my elbow pretty badly, and everything fell out of my backpack (which I had open to put my book back into). She and her cronies (the female who had been in the front before, and two male hangers-on) ran off, jeering, and I vaguely recall something like "That's what you get, bitch!" being yelled. I was crying of course, but went inside as if nothing was wrong and put a bandaid on my elbow. I thought that was all there was to it.
The following Monday, I was ill in class - food poisoning, or maybe anxiety. My dad offered to pick me up, but I wanted to go to my classes. God, I wish I had taken him up on it. I got on the bus that afternoon, and the two guys were sitting in the front (assigned there for misbehaviour, probably). I sat down in my ordinary seat and tried not to panic as they warned me that there was going to be a fight at my stop. I ignored most of what they said, just commented that I had been puking earlier and if she tried anything, I was likely to throw up on her. I tried to walk away, told her I didn't want a fight. I had no physical training whatsoever, and what fifteen-year-old girl has, really? (I've always been a year or two younger than the other people in my grade.)I was always more of a talker, and insulted her form when she punched me. I don't think I hit back, though there might have been some flailing. Long story short, I was left bruised and curled into a ball, sobbing. Though not badly hurt, my pride was wrecked and I NEVER WANTED TO SEE THEM AGAIN.

My revenge: The school suspended the one girl for two weeks, and I think kicked them off the bus for the rest of the year. I got to see all four of them in the halls (I think they went out of their way to be conspicuous) for the rest of the year, at which point I left public school. I really should have let my sister beat their asses.

Moral: Ignoring bullies works, but only if you've got the muscle to back it up. If hurt, don't go to the school; they won't do shit for you. You'll still see the same people every day, and unless you do something about it, nothing will change.

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I'm sorry.. but that's horrible... That sort of careless cruelty is just as bad as systematic, thought out bullying.

I was bullied horribly in middle school by a boy named Randy and his gang of little friends. They would always do things when the teacher was out of the room, had his back turned, etc. "Hey, Fatgirl.. where do you buy your clothes, Omar the tent maker?" And they would hum the "batman tune", but substitute the words "Fat-girl!"

My offense? I was overweight, but I wasn't the fattest kid at my school. But I was sensitive, shy, and smarter than most of them. And I was too afraid to tell anyone what was happening for fear of being labelled a "tattletale" and making the bullying worse.

As an adult, it has affected how I approach my parenting. I mean, I was teased for what was really fairly a mild difference. My son is autistic, and I am *SO* afraid and on the alert that some mean, sarcastic little jerk will start on him for a difference he can't help. Luckily schools these days are more sensitive to bullying issues.