Confessions Of A Former Bully

First off, allow me to qualify usage of the term bully. Most people think of a bully as some hulking brute who steals lunch money and fattens lips. This was not I.

I like to think of the middle-school version of myself as a thinking man’s bully, a sort of class clown run amok — a bored, self-loathsome individual who used his brain to inflict as much outward hurt as possible, rather than pay attention to girls and bad feelings or whatever the teacher was prattling on about.

I feel guilty about it now, but at the time it was a blast.

It all felt so natural; I have a brother close in age and, as anyone with siblings knows, one can get up to all sorts of sadistic nastiness before crossing over into the physical realm. Of course, I punched my brother all the time and he returned the favour, but I never allowed this facet of brotherly “love” to impinge on my classroom and schoolyard escapades. Well, almost.

I punched a guy once. He was the primary butt of jokes within our class and could often give as good as he got, so when he offered himself up for a free shot during a heated moment after school, I turned and swung. Not wanting to hit him in the face and do any real damage, I aimed low and planted my balled fist squarely in the centre of his chest. Directly on his sternum.

It felt like a brick wall. This wasn’t how it happened on MacGyver. I gasped, and fell to my knees in agony, clutching my soon-to-be swollen hand while my target nearly laughed himself sick. I felt ridiculous and wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I haven’t thrown a punch in anger since.

But I loved name-calling and other forms of psychological warfare: throwing pieces of paper in some poor sap’s hair to simulate dandruff, rewriting popular songs of the day into hurtful odes to hapless classmates and generally being an asshole to both teachers and students whenever possible.

At some point, though, the novelty wore off. We grew up. Our class was splintered upon graduating to high school and the comfort zone that allowed me to act up without fear of reprisal or consequence disappeared overnight. Rather than look for new targets, I concentrated on not becoming one myself. I preferred to remain unnoticed by as many of my classmates as possible and it was a skill I became quite adept at.

This new mindset spurred reflection on my former behaviour towards others and I felt awful about it. I knew what it was like to be made fun of as I had been a target myself on occasion. It felt awful. Being bullied when you’re a kid feels like the whole world is out to get you; even when it’s only one person instigating, there’s always five, ten or twenty spectators there to watch and laugh. It feels like drowning, or what I imagine drowning must feel like.

Bad.

So I stopped making fun of people. Left to our own devices, most of us will naturally outgrow the need to belittle others, but some of us don’t. Some never do, but such is life.

Just don’t let it get you down, because in the end, none of it matters a damn.