Bullying?
Ah, more HBI. It's a good site.
I was reading some of the stuff they have about abusive relationships and came across someone picking apart a guy's response to the site. Most of the time it was funny, but this disturbed me:
"When people treat you bad on a regular basis, you're more often than not the author of your own misery."
I have to say I disagree. Not because I've actually done this and I'm trying to cover it up (if I had done this, after reading HBI I would have taken a long, hard look at my life and tried to stop, and I certainly wouldn't have been blogging about it right now), but because this has happened to me and my friends. No, not abuse - our families aren't, for the most part, that dysfunctional, and even if they were I doubt my friends would really want to talk about it - but things like bullying.
Keep in mind that I'm still in my teens and don't really know how the adult world works, having not had any experience with it. However, in the teenage world (and please keep in mind that teens are still half-feral and very immature for the most part, including me - it's just that I'm trying to get over it) being different from someone else is an excuse to be bullied and treated like shit.
I don't actively seek this out, because I don't get off on having my sense of worth as a person utterly destroyed. I have some less mature friends who open themselves up to this by being overly confrontational or annoying, and if I see them do it again I think I'll tell them discreetly, then less discreetly if they still need to get a clue. I probably do the same thing - hell, I definitely do it when I stick up for my friends, but I'd rather get hurt than see them hurt (do I need to be brainwashed - I mean, re-educated - into not doing that?) - but very few people have told me anything about what the hell I'm doing wrong and, being utterly clueless socially, I can't figure it out, so I can't do anything apart from try and avoid these people. This being in school, sometimes that's not possible. Being stood a couple of metres away from these people is not great, especially when you can't do anything about it.
At this point, I think I still need to win you over because I've admitted I'm socially clueless and I've got no idea what I'm doing wrong - if indeed I am doing anything to set these people off. I'll now try and explain myself further.
I am pretty clueless because I'm shy and pretty introverted and I grew up mostly on my own with only a few close friends. I think I had behavioural problems at that time, which I've now mostly grown out of. However, because I grew up mostly at home and other people grew up in the society of their peers, which I didn't care for, they know all the social rules and I only know part of them. I don't know enough to figure out what I'm doing wrong, and I don't know anyone who would tell me even if I asked - although maybe I will flat-out ask "what the hell am I doing wrong?". Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but all the same it's worth a try. Another problem is that I'm bloody stubborn and I refuse to change myself to be more popular. I refuse to do things I don't like so that people will like me more and I refuse to act differently to be better suited to people's tastes. This doesn't include stuff like brushing my teeth or hair, which is a given, it includes stuff like watching Friends (I am one of the few people on the earth who doesn't like it, but that's not really something I can change) and acting like I'm dumber than I actually am to please boys (if they're scared off by strong, intelligent females, they can stay single for the rest of their lives for all I care). I can't look at myself from the inside and make a diagnosis. I need someone who can look at me objectively to set me straight, because I can only do so much without proper perspective.
Why am I worth listening to instead of writing off? Because I'm not sitting in a corner pitying myself. My problems are not bad, but they are there and they need to be solved. I am trying to work through them and figure out what I'm doing wrong - and then, if I end up fine, the problem is on someone else's end. I've admitted I need help and I'm going to seek it - no, I don't want a medal or a gold star for that, but it's more than some people can do. I'm not going to go through therapy, because I don't think I need to bare my soul to a complete stranger just yet.
So there I am. I've laid out my case. I still get treated like shit, as do my friends, by a couple of douchebags. No matter how immaturely they or I act, it doesn't excuse people coming onto us in the corridors and trying to do something between rape and assault. It is not OUR problem if, even after changing ourselves and figuring out what's wrong - and I plan to do that for myself - people still treat us badly for being different. I don't even mean different as in baby-raping, cat-eating different, I mean different as in having different tastes and interests different.
Is having different tastes and interests that bad, according to the observers reading this? Then yes, I do deserve everything I get. And, if liking books more than TV and if not shopping at Hollister is such an unforgivable sin that I deserve to be abused for the rest of my life, I'll take it with gladness before I become a clone of the people who treat me badly. But if, after having done everything I can - which I haven't yet, but I'm determined to do - I'm still treated like shit for minor reasons, the problem is not mine, it's theirs.
A summary is needed here, because I've rambled on for far too long.
1. Bullying is an exception to the rule above. Incidentally, so is abuse.
2. I'm going to discreetly tell some of my friends what they're doing wrong.
3. Because I can't solve a problem from the inside, I'm going to ask people what I'm doing wrong.
4. If it does turn out that having different tastes from other people is a legitimate reason to be bullied, fuck you, world.
I was reading some of the stuff they have about abusive relationships and came across someone picking apart a guy's response to the site. Most of the time it was funny, but this disturbed me:
"When people treat you bad on a regular basis, you're more often than not the author of your own misery."
I have to say I disagree. Not because I've actually done this and I'm trying to cover it up (if I had done this, after reading HBI I would have taken a long, hard look at my life and tried to stop, and I certainly wouldn't have been blogging about it right now), but because this has happened to me and my friends. No, not abuse - our families aren't, for the most part, that dysfunctional, and even if they were I doubt my friends would really want to talk about it - but things like bullying.
Keep in mind that I'm still in my teens and don't really know how the adult world works, having not had any experience with it. However, in the teenage world (and please keep in mind that teens are still half-feral and very immature for the most part, including me - it's just that I'm trying to get over it) being different from someone else is an excuse to be bullied and treated like shit.
I don't actively seek this out, because I don't get off on having my sense of worth as a person utterly destroyed. I have some less mature friends who open themselves up to this by being overly confrontational or annoying, and if I see them do it again I think I'll tell them discreetly, then less discreetly if they still need to get a clue. I probably do the same thing - hell, I definitely do it when I stick up for my friends, but I'd rather get hurt than see them hurt (do I need to be brainwashed - I mean, re-educated - into not doing that?) - but very few people have told me anything about what the hell I'm doing wrong and, being utterly clueless socially, I can't figure it out, so I can't do anything apart from try and avoid these people. This being in school, sometimes that's not possible. Being stood a couple of metres away from these people is not great, especially when you can't do anything about it.
At this point, I think I still need to win you over because I've admitted I'm socially clueless and I've got no idea what I'm doing wrong - if indeed I am doing anything to set these people off. I'll now try and explain myself further.
I am pretty clueless because I'm shy and pretty introverted and I grew up mostly on my own with only a few close friends. I think I had behavioural problems at that time, which I've now mostly grown out of. However, because I grew up mostly at home and other people grew up in the society of their peers, which I didn't care for, they know all the social rules and I only know part of them. I don't know enough to figure out what I'm doing wrong, and I don't know anyone who would tell me even if I asked - although maybe I will flat-out ask "what the hell am I doing wrong?". Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but all the same it's worth a try. Another problem is that I'm bloody stubborn and I refuse to change myself to be more popular. I refuse to do things I don't like so that people will like me more and I refuse to act differently to be better suited to people's tastes. This doesn't include stuff like brushing my teeth or hair, which is a given, it includes stuff like watching Friends (I am one of the few people on the earth who doesn't like it, but that's not really something I can change) and acting like I'm dumber than I actually am to please boys (if they're scared off by strong, intelligent females, they can stay single for the rest of their lives for all I care). I can't look at myself from the inside and make a diagnosis. I need someone who can look at me objectively to set me straight, because I can only do so much without proper perspective.
Why am I worth listening to instead of writing off? Because I'm not sitting in a corner pitying myself. My problems are not bad, but they are there and they need to be solved. I am trying to work through them and figure out what I'm doing wrong - and then, if I end up fine, the problem is on someone else's end. I've admitted I need help and I'm going to seek it - no, I don't want a medal or a gold star for that, but it's more than some people can do. I'm not going to go through therapy, because I don't think I need to bare my soul to a complete stranger just yet.
So there I am. I've laid out my case. I still get treated like shit, as do my friends, by a couple of douchebags. No matter how immaturely they or I act, it doesn't excuse people coming onto us in the corridors and trying to do something between rape and assault. It is not OUR problem if, even after changing ourselves and figuring out what's wrong - and I plan to do that for myself - people still treat us badly for being different. I don't even mean different as in baby-raping, cat-eating different, I mean different as in having different tastes and interests different.
Is having different tastes and interests that bad, according to the observers reading this? Then yes, I do deserve everything I get. And, if liking books more than TV and if not shopping at Hollister is such an unforgivable sin that I deserve to be abused for the rest of my life, I'll take it with gladness before I become a clone of the people who treat me badly. But if, after having done everything I can - which I haven't yet, but I'm determined to do - I'm still treated like shit for minor reasons, the problem is not mine, it's theirs.
A summary is needed here, because I've rambled on for far too long.
1. Bullying is an exception to the rule above. Incidentally, so is abuse.
2. I'm going to discreetly tell some of my friends what they're doing wrong.
3. Because I can't solve a problem from the inside, I'm going to ask people what I'm doing wrong.
4. If it does turn out that having different tastes from other people is a legitimate reason to be bullied, fuck you, world.
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