My Mother put the double bind on me from little: ‘Love your enemies’ and so forth.
After putting up with crap, being hit from behind and called everything you can imagine because I wouldn’t fight, towards the end of 6th grade something snapped and I grabbed the main antagonist and thumped him ten ways for Tuesday.
Things were much better from 7th grade forward. 
While I wouldn’t recommend physical violence, it’s always best to confront a bully, IMO. Bullies thrive on perceived weakness. They see it as a signal to increase the pressure.
For boys, I’d recommend simply wigging out and swinging fists. You might get smacked, but probably not. And even if you do, that was coming anyway.
For girls, I’d recommend a serious screaming session with insults and epithets. Hardly anyone can handle that. Unless, of course, you’ve done the karate thing. In that case, a serious kick to the bollocks will get any guy’s attention and respect.
What about in a chat room or message board situation? Has anyone ever seen an annoyance ignored away? In my experience, someone always seems to rise to the bait, and flame wars ensue.
I can’t help but wonder if the trolls and socks would really disappear if they didn’t get the reaction they sought, or would they escalate…?
In my experience, “ignore them and they’ll go away” didn’t work. But maybe that’s because I never really learned to ignore them.
I was teased mercilessly from 5th grade on, with 9th grade being the worst, when I transferred to a new school. Sure, I was an easy target, but that doesn’t make it right. I enjoyed reading and school, and geeky things like band. So what?
Part of me wonders what was wrong with these people that made them so horridly mean and spiteful, even now. I still harbor a great deal of resentment towards them, more than a decade later. I once pondered sending a therapy bill to one of them, but thought better of that in the long run. heh.
And my parents tried, but “ignore them” just didn’t cut it. So if anyone has this problem with one of their kids in the future, that’s fine as a first line of defense, but if the bullying continues, please, seek some other solutions. These days, a boy bullying/teasing a girl like they did me probably wouldn’t be as tolerated by the school administration.
In the end:
– One of my tormentors now works at the DMV back home. This renews my faith in karmic justice.
– One of the reasons I don’t want children is that I don’t want one to have to go through what I did.
– My life improved greatly once I started college in a different state, and made all sorts of friends that a) didn’t know/care about my past and b) were more like me than people I’d known before.
I never could ingnore the bullies long enough for them to go away. I always found other soultions.
However recently my brother-in-law was driving on a freeway and the rush hour slowly ground down to a halt. Now he doesn’t know why but this guy who had been driving pretty recklessly and was now beside got out of his vehical and walked over to my BIL’s window and started screaming at him. Violent threats, laced with profanities. BIL just ignored him. He just stared straight ahead and ignored him. The guy walked off, got back in his vehical and sped off down the median.
The bully’s vehical was later seen stuck in a ditch.
So it worked then. But in a closed situation like a schoor or work, I’d say ignoring them is not a very good tatic.
Reading this thread makes me realize that one of the great benefits of not working (you know, like, for money) is that I get to choose almost all of the people I’m around. I haven’t had to deal with real bullies since high school.
My own experience parallels that of most posters…ignoring childhood bullies doesn’t work…sometimes standing up to them does. We should here and now declare the “just ignore them” advice to be illegal. Violators will be sentenced to a regimen of spitballs and wedgies.
But I think in the adult world ignoring irritating people often works quite well, if we take “ignore” to encompass “don’t take it personally”…“don’t sweat the small stuff”…“being above it all”
The other time I used to try to use “ignoring” was when guys would make unwelcome comments and advances. That has been completly taken care of just by getting older and fatter 
Ignoring works online usually, I’d like to think. On Livejournal where I frequent, I have enemies from real life who read my journal and write thinly-veiled threats towards me in their own journals. I used to get angry and write my own cryptic messages, but now that I just ignore them, maybe they’ve stopped being doofuses about it.