Stick to MPSIMS, or, better idea, IMHO, for “how can I handle this situation?” threads. But keep it out of the Pit, because this is where the SDMB bullies hang out. You’ll just draw the attention of people who are spoiling for a fight, like
Or people who think that getting “wedgies and noogies” and being accused of a capital crime are the same thing, like
Or sneer at your efforts to maintain your sense of self and worth, like
Or twist what you say and call you a crybaby for taking a sensible course of action instead of letting the situation get out of hand, like
and
That “last post above” was this, BTW.
Or you’ll just get complete non sequiturs like this,
which I still can’t make head or tail of.
TMWTGG, you have not only my sympathy, but my admiration, for handling this problem with common sense and maturity.
And now my obligatory it-happened-to-me anecdote:
When I was in grade seven, I was in art class when this one girl decided to start fucking with my mind. We and some other girls were chatting away when, out of no-fucking-where, she pipes up with, “Tell me, Rilchie…is it true that you’re on drugs?”
Long story made very short (mostly because I can’t remember all the details, which is something else for you to keep in mind!), I decided that if she wanted to play these kinds of games with me, there was nothing I could do about that. But I realized how easy it would be for this story to grow legs and find its way to the administration. So I made an appointment to see the vice principal and calmly told him, naming no names, that someone was spreading a rumor that I was “on drugs”, and that if he did hear such a thing, I just wanted him to know that it had zero basis in fact. He thanked me for telling him, and fortunately, that was the end of that.
But that was in 1982. I shudder to think what would happen today.
I’m pretty sure that most of those posters go to MPSIMS or IMHO as well.
The fact is no matter what you rant about here some people will take the other side for what ever reason. Just to be contrary, they feel they have a point to make, they are assholes, whatever.
For instance if I ranted about a biker raping and killing my wife I’d bet someone would post about how I lumper all biker gangs together and then ask how she was dressed.
And then they’d blame you for it, Zebra. Let’s face it - there are a lot of folks here to just type whatever pops into their pretty little heads, consequences for others be damned. They’re looking for a reason to jump the OP’s case, not support him/her.
True enough. But I figured that posts like the ones I quoted above would be less well received in IMHO, and the authors told to take it to the forum designed for flames.
Oh, and Zebra, they’d also say, “So if your wife was raped and killed, what are you doing on the Straight Dope, instead of hunting down this guy with a gun? Huh? Huh?”
Well, when it comes to school bullying, people seem to have a more lax attitude about things that, in the workplace are considered harassment or creating a hostile work environment and can get you fired or even cause legal troubles.
Someone pointed that out in the linked thread, Joel, saying that someone like TMWTGG’s adversary “wouldn’t last five minutes” in a corporate environment, without taking into consideration why that would be.
In my defence Rilchiam, in my initial post in the thread in question, the keen observer will note that I offered Golden Gun a very kind, and concerted effort which attempted to explain how the peer system works in High School. I even made a point of congratulating him on how he had managed to go about things in a cool, low key kinda way.
In the interests of fairness Rilchiam, I rather think that if you chose to include my name in this thread, you should have also noted my original “sensitive” post in the same thread.
Moreover, the keen observer will also note that Golden Gun kept coming back, consistently talking about how he could prosecute a case against the bullies for “libel and slander” (if he wanted to).
Well, in my considered opinion, (and I stand by this opinion even after the creation of this thread) well, that smacks of somebody who doesn’t know when to be gracious. I maintain my assessment, based on the tone and nature of Golden Gun’s later posts that there was more than just a little bit of him which was enjoying the attention which came from playing the role of “victim” so I said my piece.
In closing, it would be wrong to assert that I went into that thread guns ablazing, being a cold callous asshole to Golden Gun. Far from it. I merely suspect that we offered some advice (all of us, collectively) to the guy, and in hindsight, he actually wanted sympathy, more than he wanted advice.
The reason they were picking on you is because you’re the kind os loser who runs off to tell the prinicpal everytime someone looks at you in a way that you don’t like. Wuss.
You have to admit though, Boo Boo Foo there are a lot of people on this board, on this forum in particular, who seem to post the opposite position of a rant for what appears to be nothing more than the sheer enjoyment of being contradictory. Many times, these are the same people who feel the need to be overly harsh in their posts or come out with both guns a blazing unnessesarily, just because it’s the Pit.
Of course, this is a public message board and you can’t post here without expecting contradictory opinions (that’s what makes this place so darn interesting) but I feel as if a lot of people just act like jerks here because, well, they can.
That’s why I quit starting Pit threads not long after my arrival here. I like to think I’m a quick learner.
Oh I agree lezlers - I agree with you entirely on that. In this instance however, I felt I had a rather defensible position - at least in regards to myself - so I was happy to buy into the thread.
But yes, that syndrome you mention is very true - inarguably.
Thanks, Rilchiam, for saying the sort of thing I wanted to say when I read the other thread and saying it better. I’m always amazed when people don’t “get” the fact that rumors and insinuations often cause more lasting hurt than physical bullying. (Having spent four years taking physical and mental abuse from my classmates almost every day, I can safely say that if I met them all again as adults, the one person whom I would never forgive under any circumstances is the girl who started a particularly vile story about someone I was close to.)
Boo Boo Foo, there’s a difference between “could” and “want to”. I could have charged them libel and slander. I didn’t, and don’t, want to. How is that any different than not acknoweldging it in the first place? The result is the same for the boys, as opposed to my actually going ahead and charging them. (Although if they continue to harass me after this whole mess is over, then it may come to that. Who knows.)
And Rilch, thank you for starting this thread. Some real asinine stuff was said in that thread. It’s amazing how apathetic people are torwards bullying because of that “boys will be boys” mentality, and these are the same people who don’t believe the damage it does to someone.
Then why mention it? Honestly? To mention it once was a slip up which any fair minded person would forgive you for. To mention it time and time again says to me that you want to win a sympathy battle. It also says to me that litigation in America has gone nuts. It also says to me that you have a fair bit of conceit - and ultimately, THAT is what I’m objecting to.
And you know what THAT says to me? That says to me that you’re really enjoying the attention which comes from having a second thread created about you.
So… you wanna fight the good fight regarding school bullying? Great, more power to ya… but, if you wanna enjoy the attention which comes from talking about yourself instead whilst “supposedly” fighting that good fight? Expect the cynicism. And yes, I’m extremely cynical right now.
Here’s your choice… fight the good fight without playing the martyr yourself. Or, play the martyr while fighting the good fight and prepare yourself for the skepticism and cynicism.
Don’t believe me? Go back and look at the title of your original thread and try and tell me that your ego didn’t influence the title.
I too, had to deal with bullies. I’m a pretty big guy now, plus, I have other strategies to deal with those kind of assholes, who still exist into adulthood. I took the crude way out. After about two years of taking it, not telling the principle (code of the schoolyard bullshit), and avoiding them, I started hurting people, and getting hurt.
Unlike the Columbine incident, where those bullied (so the story goes) lashed out at everyone, I divided the people into groups. There were my friends. There were the bullies. There were the bullies toady’s, which in some situations were friends when the bullies were not around. There were those who cheered for me in a fight (oddly, the black students, who must have seen me as the bullied underdog).
After getting into about 5 fights during 9th grade without much change, actually sooner than that, I realized about 80% of my hassles could be linked to one person. Eventually, I built the courage to jump his ass and get a few licks on him. He wasn’t even the toughest fight. Life got so much easier after that. Oddly, a week later I got into a fight with someone, not ordinarily a bully but just taunting and harassing me hard. He was kicking my ass when broken up. But guess what? People whom I was scared to even approach were coming up saying “good job.” The rest of High school was lots of fun for me. I was able to build strong friendships and allies.
This should not have had to happen. Bullies need to be removed from school, period. They have commited offenses that adults would get prosecuted for. Personally, I would like some of them tortured, Especially the Rhum Runner variety.
Rhum Runner, you are a pussy. A worthless piece of shit! A lazy masturbating fuck whose IQ is lower than your waistline.
Also, in the interests of balance and fairness, I’d like to point out that I just read a few posts by Golden Gun in some other threads which had absolutely zero to do with this particular subject and I’m more than happy to acknowledge that he’s a very witty and intelligent young man.
I came across his posts by accident - I certainly wasn’t searching for them - and they made me smile. He’s a funny and inventive young man. I merely disagree with some of the points raised here but I don’t perceive that as being a major problem.
Boo Boo Foo, believe it or not, I am not looking for sympathy. I wasn’t looking for advice either. I was looking to vent. A lot of the people in that thread were seeing all sorts of hidden meanings in my thread title and the rant itself that simply wern’t there. It was a rant. Nothing more, nothing less.
So please, stop calling me an attention whore looking for sympathy, because it isn’t true.
