I was reading Wild Bills thread, and now Im curios. Which approach better served you dopers, when encountering bullies (BTW, former bullies reponses also requested)? Walk away (or give up lunch money, etc.) or fight?
My own experience:
I moved to Oakland from Highland Park, MI (sort of a suburb* of Detroit) when I was 13. Almost as soon as it was recognized that I was from elsewhere, the bullying started. Taunts, name calling, cutting in front of me in the lunch line etc.)
Well one day Im sitting in Spanish class. The teacher calls on Roosevelt (the main asshole of my life at the time)to answer a question. He gets it wrong, and the teacher calls on me. I get the question right. The girl next to him calls him a name. He looks at me and says, “you better not laugh”.
I’m not sure if I was temporarily insane at the time, but it made me laugh. He took a swing at me, and I lost it. First time I’d ever broken someone’s nose. He never bothered me again, and his friends backed off too.
So in my case, standing up to the bully worked but in the other thread, most said the opposite. So what worked for you?
*Those from Detroit will no what I meant by that. Those not from the area, Highland Parks’ boundaries are totally within the city of Detroit. With the exception of a slightly safer downtown area, you might as well be in Detroit.
I stand up to bullies when they persist, though that hasn’t happened in a long time. If they don’t persist, I let it go. My dad taught me the value of walking away from a fight when feasible and, more importantly, of not letting it build up to a fight in the first place.
Never did give up lunch money. Coercion qualified as “persisting.” But most bullies look for soft targets and cheap-won victories. The liklihood of sincere counterforce was apparently enough to dissuade the bullies. (It probably also helped that I wasn’t a small kid.) When it came down to it, I did fight, but even the occasional defeat had an effect.
Even friends who were painfully small in high school told me that standing up to bullies is the only way to go.
I was quite the brawler when I was a kid, but by the time I reached high school I had pretty much given it up.
My tactic has always been the same. I stand up to them, but refuse to physically fight back. I’ll verbally stand up to them, practically daring them to hit me. I’ve found very few who would without me doing something first.
A few have actually hit me. I’m reasonably solid, do not have a glass jaw, and a reasonably high pain threshhold. When they hit me I did my best to project that it hadn’t hurt and that I could kick their ass if I wanted to. I continued to verbally face off. Practically daring them to hit me again. Only one person ever hit me the second time and I kicked his ass. When it was done I told him that everyone could hit me once, but nobody got to hit me twice. He never bothered me again.
That was all in high school. I have only been assaulted once as an adult. It was random thing while I was waiting for a bus. Completely out of the blue and the guy just kept walking on. It is silly to take pride in it, but even caught completely off guard I have never been knocked down (though I did need four stitches in my lip).
I’ve got a pretty well established method of dealing with people who are determined to provoke me. For starters, I never start a physical fight, but if someone hits me, I will hit back and I will not stop until either I’m knocked out, my opponent is knocked out, or someone gets hauled off by the man. Of course, it’s never gotten to that point. Usually, I can think of enough witty banter to disarm the other person before he throws a punch, and when I can’t, they almost always back off when they realize I won’t back down. I don’t care if you’re bigger or stronger or have a black belt; I will stand up for myself, because God knows nobody else will.
I’ll stand up for myself verbally and a little physically but most people laugh it off because I’m so pitifully little and a girl, I’ve had to fight things out before but it’s never gotten too bad. I just don’t like to ignore things unless I’m sure that’s the best way to go.
Flight then, fight now. I took up Thai boxing! Best thing for me.
But my best time was about 6 years ago on New Years. I was at a club and this drunk guy was harrasing some of the girls I was with, and so they basically hid behind me. This guy immediately gets in my face, and I’m smiling and talking and trying to calm things down, but its not working, and the whole dance floor has just gotten very still. I try my last calm sentence, telling the guy that honestly, the girl he was hitting on really wasn’t worth it (she was a bitch from hell). He then said “Well, are you worth it?” in a tough guy voice. I don’t know what came over me, but I calmly reached up, kissed him full on the lips and said “For $50 bucks I am.” He was so stunned he didn’t know what to do, and as I was waiting for him to start swinging, all of a sudden a gorilla of a cop hits him from the side and drags him off. It was so great! He started fighting the cop, the bouncer, everyone! He ended up in an ambulance screaming bloody murder and I had to fill out a report!
Don’t know if that’s the best way to handle it, but it worked that once!
obfusciatrist I’m interested, does those kind of random assualts take place commonly where you’re from, I’ve never heard a story quite like that one.
Tomcat That has to be the funniest story I’ve ever heard. Certainly beats my last bar brawl, especially considering I spent the night in pokey.
FWIW, I’ve tried the disarming them with witty banter thing, but Im not very good at it. Ive got six brothers so playing the dozens is pretty natural to me. Generally everything I try to say only makes matters worse, and Ive had more than one fat lip to show for it
After many years of being a pacifist in school, I finally ‘snapped’ when tormented once too often. I attacked a long time bully. The expression on his face was wonderful. Bounced him off of a wall and split his lip. He left me alone after that.
Did the same with another bully, but he could fight better. Got my can beat and he did not stop pestering me thru HS.
I guess in the last 10 years I can remember 2 occasions I was “jawing” with someone. Both times, when it seemed at all likely violence might occur, I realized I was acting like an idiot and apologized, saying whatever was needed to defuse the situation. I guess not too many folk go around “bullying” middle aged professionals living and recreating in the suburbs.
I’ve trained various “streetfighting” oriented martial arts for the past 10 years or so and am pretty capable of handling most physical threats. But I hope I would walk away whether verbally assaulted or even physically stricken. I spar several times a week (naturally with gloves and headgear if going all out) so I know I can take a pretty good shot. I have often thought about this, and feel I would give just about anyone at least one free shot. It is pretty unlikely that (without a weapon) they would be able to strike me harder than my buddies do on a regular basis. And I’m almost always pretty aware of my surroundings, so it isn’t all that likelythat I will be surprised. Finally, someone looking for a victim is probably unlikely to make a 6’3" 200# guy his first choice.
If something happened, tho, and I could walk/run away, I hope I would. No matter whether the guy was screaming after me that I was a chicken or anything else.
I should be able to handle most people on the street, so I don’t need to prove anything to myself or anyone else. And I don’t want to injure anyone else. The way I always see it is, 2 things could happen in a fight, either you could get hurt, or you could hurt the other guy. And neither one is desirable.
You can have my wallet, my car. Call me and my family names. Cut me off in traffic. Whatever makes you feel tough. If you were to seriously threaten my personal safety or the health and safety of my loved ones, tho, I would have no compunction about removing the threat.
I have 3 kids. My 12 year old is a dancer - she moves incredibly well with a stick or knife. My 11 year old son is very good on the ground. And my 9 year old daughter seems strongest at kicking and punching. But they all know they are not permitted to use physical force on anyone unless they feel their life depends on it. Which is never the case with a schoolyard bully. This is true even tho my 11 year old is a frequent target of bullies at school. Even though he could kick their asses, he never has, and I am very proud of him for that.
I’ve only fought a bully once, but it wasn’t really fair. He was a pretty scawny. He and his oaf friend gave me a hard time, but I could always shut them down with my words. One day the scrawny kid was being a prick as he rode his bike. I simply stuck a stick in the spokes, locking his tires, resulting in him crashing into the grass. Though he got up, it didn’t take much for me to shove him down a couple times. His oaf friend couldn’t have taken on my oaf friend, so a retaliation later in the week was unlikely.
I actually developed a reputation for tossing out disarming sarcastic remarks. I once asked a would-be bar brawler,
“Are those the same knuckles you punch your mother with?” And the guy actually laughed. Hard. Later on, the bouncer approached me in amazement. He told me he’d seen that same guy put a dude in the hospital for merely telling him to back off.
He was so stunned he didn’t know what to do, and as I was waiting for him to start swinging, all of a sudden a gorilla of a cop hits him from the side and drags him off. It was so great! He started fighting the cop, the bouncer, everyone! He ended up in an ambulance screaming bloody murder and I had to fill out a report!