I didn’t get beat up in the sense of getting punched in the face. I went to fairly nice schools. The closest I came to getting “beat up” was that when I was a freshman in high school, there was an older kid on my bus who would put me in wrestling holds, which scared me. I complained, an administrator talked to him and he stopped. Also, once at a pep rally in HS some guy slapped I had never met slapped me in the face and then ran away very quickly. Even when I went to summer school where there was more of the “bad” crowd, I kept to myself and I wasn’t bothered. I was picked on verbally a fair amount, particularly in late elementary school and in middle school.
Raises hand The worst I got was when the quarterback of our football team asked me “if I wanted to go” over something stupid. I said: “I don’t know–can’t you go to the bathroom by yourself?” Fortunately, he took it the way it was intended.
While I was thought of as kinda weird in school, I was generally well-liked, if only because people knew I would help them in school stuff.
Not only have I never been beat on by a bully, but I’ve really never even been bullied. I can only even think of a handful of instances where I was aware people were trying to pick on me or make fun of me, let alone sustained bullying.
I think I always did and still do project a very sincere disinterest in all the human drama that was important to my contemporaries and it left me an awful target for bullying. I was a mature kid and I wasn’t interested in interacting with them on their level.
Not like a haughty 12 year old who thought he was too good for other 12 year olds, but more like an adult in a 12 year old’s body. I remember two girls tried to pick on me for a few days when I was 12 over my trumpet case, which they felt looked like a pickle. To my best recollection I reacted the same way I would react today is 12 year old girls made fun of my pickle shaped trumpet case. Namely not at all, but with a tiny dash of “why would anyone think I’d care if they pointed out my trumpet case looked like a pickle?” I always feel bad hearing about how vicious kids are because in my experience they’re fucking awful at being mean.
So not only did no bullies physically beat on me, but I’ve never been within light years of it happening. Not even in the same galaxy.
Does it count if it’s Kimstu here on the Dope?
I did, definitely.
It was second grade, and this kid Joe was known as the class bully even at that young age. One day at recess I saw him picking on a girl who was lower on the social chain, she wasn’t always made fun of but pretty often she was the butt of the joke.
In a fit of nobility I ran over to the guy, stepped in front of the girl, and told him to leave her alone. He punched me right in the stomach.
I got to go home early and get a milkshake, he got a week’s suspension. Looking back, I have no idea what I expected to happen when I ran in between them, seeing as how he was the husky bully-kid and I was a rail-thin girl, but I definitely lost that battle.
Nope, in fact, the closest I’ve ever gotten to a “fight” was a game of somethingorother (Power Rangers or martial arts master or whatnot) with friends that got slightly over the edge, but was broken up before anyone got hurt (I only remember it because it’s the only time I got caught doing something bad enough to warrant a detention). I remember having a “bully” in 1st grade or so, but it was more like “an older kid who played a game of cat and mouse with me and my friend every few odd weeks.” He would chase us, but if he caught us… nothing really happened, a lot of back and forth good-natured teasing and whatnot. I guess sometimes he punched us, but he clearly pulled them and I think he even apologized once when he accidentally hurt one of us.
Oh God yes. It would be hard to describe how many times I got stomped out by bullies, usually many at a time. It has colored my life more than you can possibly imagine.
I thank my lucky stars every single day that my mother wouldn’t allow me to learn how to fight back and that when I did I got punished much worse than if I had simply manned the fuck up. :rolleyes:
This very thing, more than any other, has made me what I am today, and it will continue through my son, who will never be a victim as long as I have anything to say about it. I don’t care if he gets expelled for fighting, he will learn to stomp the ever living shit out of anybody who steps to him looking for a fight. All he’ll get from me is a pat on the back.
Well, not really. I got into a fight with one once, a girl who was several years older than me, and she threw a punch. I was astonished by how much it hurt because I’d never been punched before. After instinctively nailing her with a front kick between the legs, I looked at her and said, ‘‘Wow, that hurt more than I expected it to.’’ Then I said, ‘‘This is dumb. I don’t really want to fight you,’’ and walked away. (She told everyone the next day she had kicked my ass, even though I was sitting right there on the school bus uninjured. She was a sad girl.)
I had my share of bullies growing up, but I never took them seriously. I don’t know why. They just irritated me more than they intimidated me. I’d usually greet their insults with an eye roll or look at them like ‘‘WTF?’’ I remember some kids stepping on the back of my shoes and I stopped, turned around, and said, ‘‘Really? Seriously? Are you like ten years old, or what?’’
When it did become physical, I’d go to some adult for intervention. They were rarely punished, but getting the heat from adults made them less likely to cross that physical line. I had a weird sense of confidence when I was a kid even though I was a genuinely strange one. I genuinely did not give a shit what other people thought of me.
I saw too many other kids bullied in high school, though, and a lot of them got their asses kicked pretty routinely. I remember in high school band camp a bunch of the guys laughing about sticking a bar of soap in some kid’s asscrack – the poor kid probably got the shit beat out of him every day at home, too. I chewed their asses out but I don’t think it did any good. I hope that kid found a way beyond his shitty childhood, wherever he is.
I think this is a False dichotomy – it really can be both.
I was the small, non-athletic and socially inept “brain” throughout school, which meant I was a Bully Magnet.
I also had (have… :o) a quick temper to go with my red hair (oh, yeah, I forgot – yet another bully magnet…)
Which meant I did not take bullying. So I ended up getting in a lot of fights. Which I usually lost, often decisively, but I also usually landed a punch or a few in the process. In most cases, that was the end of that bully picking on me – I don’t think it was Esteem Issues, they just figured it’s easier to bully the weak kids who didn’t fight back.
So – IME, fighting back does help in the long run, although it’s a good way to get your ass handed to you in the immediate situation.
I had several things going for me that kept bullies at bay: a cool, well-liked, hung out with “hard” guys older brother, was from the rougher part of town so friends with the bad kids (and sort of one myself) and kicked many arses in primary (elementary) school. The arses I kicked included older girls plus boys my own age so people generally knew not to mess with me.
The closest I came to taking a beating from bullies was this group of three girls who were a year older. When I was about 12, a friend and I thought it would be funny to shine a laser pen at these girls and shout abuse (“ya fat cows!”) at them. They tried to bully me for a bit, pushing me in the corridor at school, shouting threats and the like. After a couple of weeks of this they got me outside of school where they tried to make me get down on my knees and beg forgiveness.
I told them I was sorry for what I did but there was no way that was happening so they could either leave me alone or give me a kicking. They considered it, decided it wasn’t worth it and left me alone after that (I later became quite good friends with one of the girls). If they had decided battering me was more fun than not there was no way I would have won; I might have got a couple of punches in but three on one is never going to end well.
I wasn’t much of a target, and never of persistent bullying, but there were two incidents I do remember:
In sixth grade a group of three kids tried to beat me up. They were too stupid to restrain me in any way or do something that actually hurts so it ended up just being pushing and shoving before the ISS teacher wandered by.
During my freshman year of high school I bad mouthed baseball during the spring sports season. One of juniors on the baseball team didn’t like it so first he tried to beat me up but enough of my friends were around that he just left after we pushed each other. He was in my gym class and we were doing the “flag” football unit. While he was on defense playing middle linebacker, I ran an in-pattern and never took my eyes off the QB (or, more simply, we were sprinting in opposite directions and my head was turned so I couldn’t see him). He decided to intentionally spear me in the side of head with the crown of his head . I was out on my feet for about ten minutes, had to have my ear bled/depressurized/whatever and a few stitches.
What the hell kind of 18 year old goes around beating up 6th graders? :eek:
Didn’t get my ass kicked, though I had some nasty physical confrontations and a shitload of psychological bullying. As I was the only blue eyed blond in a swarm of dark, garlic breathed, stunted dwarves of Sicilian extraction, I stood out as a Bully Magnet all through the wretched days of my school years.
I did go to the last high school reunion just out of curiosity and found out, much to my surprise, the worst bullies never showed up for it, or the previous one. All moved away. I can only hope they’re currently expiring in hospices from rectal cancer.
You should’ve seen my neighborhood growing up (late 70s/early 80s). Yes, we had 18 y/o who would harrass/bully/shake down ~6th graders.
In answer to the OP, yes.
I was told bullys are cowards, and all you had to do is stand up to them and they’d back down.
Was I ever sold a bill of goods. :rolleyes:
Without ever having heard of or read Sun Tzu, I quickly reinvented all on my own most of the Principles fo Warfare, the most important of which (well, at least the one I favored and used the most) tended to be, “Run away! Run AWAY!”
This what you mean, boss?
Just once, by a boy in my 6th grade music class. It only took one punch though and the ‘fight’ was over. I lost.
As I’ve mentioned a few times, I grew up in West Dallas and fights were pretty serious. I lost a few but Kept going back until I won; my most effective move was to bite the hell out of whoever I was fighting and I didn’t care where I bit or how damn hard I bit; bite long enough and hard enough and the opposite party will lose interest.
Back when I was a kid, we would buy brass knuckles in pawn shops; a few shots to the solar plexus would generally settle issues pretty quickly.
i made my reputation by being willing to fit anyone, any time, win lose or draw.
I’m almost 70 now and I still size up guys as they approached me.
Wasn’t there recently a study that pretty much confirmed what every bullied kid has ever known: that bullies are not people with low self esteem who are trying to build themselves up at others’ expense, they’re people with excessive self-esteem who think the world owes them amusement and the suffering of the weaker is of no importance?
I haven’t been beat up, and I never really even encountered a bully. In fact, this thread is freaking me out. Every story, I’m like :eek: :eek: :eek: “That really happened!”.
In middle school a kid who used to “diss” me occasionally was also known as an avid fighter. One day I got tired of the back-and-forth between us and I got up in his face. I pushed him away and he started backing up. I told him to, erm… “bring it, bitch” to which he replied that he didn’t wanna fight me and we were cool. I was disappointed as I really wanted to fight him :mad:
EDIT: Apparently this thread is about whether or not I ever got my ass kicked by a bully, and not so much my boring story of an experience with a bully :smack:
The answer is no.