Bully Beef Stews

*insert excessively dramatic sigh*

*adds a flounce for proper effect*



Picture if you will.

I grew up, gangly and lanky, glasses, buck teeth, sickly and too book smart. It meant I was an automatic target for the cool kids, who had to compensate for the fact that when the teacher called on them, and they stood up to offer not only the wrong response, they would have to do it loudly as our teachers demanded vocal clarity, meaning no one would let the fact that the word "achieve" is indeed spelled with the 'I' before the 'E' be forgotten until the end of that week, and the teachers would call on either myself, or two others to give the correct answer, because without fail, we already knew and were literally nodding off to sleep because we were bored waiting on the obvious.

I ruled my primary school, or so I thought, because I was the brightest, most charming, best mannered, one of the three titans who grasped sarcasm, satire, irony and cynicism with the adults around us from fairly young and we employed it ruthlessly at the expense of our classmates egos.

I never got physically bullied at primary school because I was taller than everyone, and honestly my mother was scary.

Of course primary school did not last forever.

I soon discovered that I was of average intelligence on the secondary school scene, not to mention I was ugly, poxy, buck toothed, and wore glasses, with short picky hair (I chopped off fourteen of my eighteen inches during the summer holiday because I wanted to start fresh for the new school) and absolutely no ass (at eleven years old, I had a period, mosquito bites on my chest and no ass, I was a failure in the highly sexual world of prepubescent buffoonery). I was 'bully bait', by the end of the first year I was shattered that no one found me smart, or charming for that matter, I was already accustomed to no one finding me attractive.

I was fucking shattered that no one cared about
my damn Sherlock Holmes leatherbound
collection. The nerve. 

No one gave a shit that I could bring to school literally, dozens of books or quote Shakespeare on the whim, no one cared that I was the top student at my school, in fact that was pretty much the thing that shattered me, the day I announced on introduction that I scored the highest in my school, and my classmates "stupsed" and informed me that they were on the lower scale of intelligence by passing to this new school.

Instantly defuckingflated. I shut down, tried to study, tried to soothe my wounded ego but there would be no rest for me, as I for the first time in my life got 67% on my end of year exams, and came 13th in class.

I cried for a week straight staring at that summer vacation. I was a dunce. From coming first or second in class, to thirteenth. From being everybody's favorite to being told in class that my sarcasm was an indicator of a weak mind that tries to hide it behind the weakest of wit.

Then the bullying REALLY kicked off.

Few guys tried the lunch money thing, but my mother was still not giving me money in first form, so that failed.

Then came the girls, the flat out laughter at my height weight, lack of shape, teeth, and glasses. Followed by the lines about my period and challenging me that I was diseased on occasion.

Of course there were the teachers who joined in on it, not realizing that they were creating the very same monster who would see them retired in a few years.

By the second term of second form, I had hit a wall and had a mental break of sorts.

I became outwardly aggressive as a norm.

My first fight in school I got my ass kicked by someone who would grow up to be a close friend afterward because my mother was not having none of our school beef coming home.

I told Josh about his mother, and Josh choke slammed me into the ground.

As I lay there, I had several thoughts, and not one of them was "But you gonna hit him back right?" I was at that point, outclassed, disadvantaged, and wrong, but the one thing that ALWAYS gets me in trouble isn't the fact that I am aggressive, or that I am dogged in my pursuit of justice, but always that I am an abysmal loser.

I hate to lose to the point that I simply will NOT compete, thus will never lose. Apply to everything.

So up next was turning this loss into a win, my first conscious attempt, at being petty.

* insert whimsical sigh *

I was such a brat. An entitled, obtuse brat.

Anyhow, took a few years to get over it, and few fights with people I was on par with, and people who were bigger and stronger, with their friends, but I didn't care. I was now taking my power back from people physically. Every time anyone tried to bully me I shunned a crew and stood alone, sometimes I cried about it, like when my period wouldn't stop and every day I had to change uniforms, when I sucked a dick because sex hurt and he talked about it. When people would tease me to kingdom come about my mum kissing me on the forehead and I still got affected, but it all fueled me.

I became a physical enforcer type at school. I had my moments of being a bully too, but, I never had the taste for it, picking on inferior or weak people was never my thing, too much work, little to no pay off.

I instead, chose to battle the bullies. To stand up to them and show them that for all their trash talking, picking on first formers asses, they weren't shit.

I had good days, when I was loved by my friends, and annoyed the hell outta the guy tryna cut in front a first former aggressively tryna get lunch from Mrs. Hope because my big ass mouth was the first one to raise the "NOT TUHDAY BADDY" cry. Breaking up fights in the junior school with Jubei because we really didn't want to have to deal with our year head interrupting our classes for the fifth time that week.

I had bad days, when I hit a young lady with a hockey stick and went to beat her down for wrongfully hitting a boy she thought hit her only to hear my best friend screaming from her spanish class telling me to put the hockey stick down and think about my exams. When I laughed along with the guys at the younger kids trying to be cool, and ending up physically hurt because of "kicks and bites".

I walked a different path, and to this day, as an adult, I appreciate it.

I don't have some elevated sense of justice, I get a feeling of satisfaction when I stand up for someone who didn't think anyone would, sometimes I let it fill me with light, other times I just move on from it because I know I got some fucked up standards at times.

The one thing, that I will maintain to this day, is there is nobody who I will let bully me, or anyone I care deeply about. I have left jobs based on this premise and I regret nothing.

I have a clear definition of what bullying is to me, and why ever so often you would see me NOT get into things to defend anyone that people assume is being bullied.

We tend to think someone getting attention and not being forgiven for their actions, being called to answer for their actions is bullying, but that's not really it.

Bullying cannot be used to describe a reaction to bullying.

Bullying is when you have the power over the individual, and you exert that power, trying to force the individual or group, into your will at their own comfort's expense. Trying to humiliate them so they no longer feel confident in their world.

Attempting to have them ostracized by threatening other people with implied (or other) consequences if they decide not to join in on the intimidation or support of said actions.

To me, bullying is you trying to hurt me by erasing my sense of self worth.

Bullying isn't you coming and telling me "I think you're a bitch". That's merely a strong opinion you're voicing. I don't have to agree with it, on the spot I can reject it and walk away from it and be cool.

I can reference it, and make light of it, because it was given a voice.

Bullying is after I remove myself, you come back, to again inform me, "I think you're a bitch!!" This time, you're making more noise, and invading my space. You're calling friends to come watch the show and join in on it, actively endorsing the action in order to displace my sense of self, you're trying to diminish my own comfort levels.

My reaction can be to ignore you, or strike back, but be christ, my reaction would not be bullying because YOU went out of your way to come to me, to make me uncomfortable, not just once, but again, with intention.

You gon take what you get though.