Irony In Bullying

[blas87]

You guys wanna know something really interesting?

Lately, with bullying being all the news these days, a lot of people on FB are obviously taking a stand.

Well, a lot of former bullies or people that were awful to me and others in school have gotten on that bandwagon (hmm, seen the error of their ways, or just selectively pretend they never did anything?)

What's even more odd, is that some of the worst kids I ever dealt with on a daily basis....are either teaching assistants or real teachers now!

Every time I find out another former popular bully kid is now a teacher's aid or a teacher, I just want to roll my eyes. That, or when they post anti-bullying proganda, I have to fight responding "Yeah, remember when you were that bully?" but I don't do it because I want to try my damnest not to live in the past and get over it.

I mean, hell, if they are good adults now and are good teachers, that's fine. It just strikes me as so odd.

[Greenday]

I'm pretty sure most don't remember what they did. Guys I hated from middle school and high school come up to me now, acting like we were good friends. It disgusts me. But whatever.

[blas87]

No shit.

I almost was raging the other morning when one of my oldest frenemies posted an anti bullying note on FB, declaring she's going to do whatever she can legally to make sure bullying stops. And posted her sob story of how rough she had it and how horrible everyone was to her.

Well, she did have a rough upbringing. The kicker is that SHE was the bully. She broke ties with me for no real good reason, and I just set back and was ready to just let her go on with her life without me, but the next school year, she was after me like white on rice, harrassing me and setting her friends up against me as well. She claims she was kicked out of multiple schools growing up because the school said it was her fault, but it really wasn't (bull) and that she had to graduate early because it was too hard to go through school with people being so cruel to her.

Just a note: I don't really talk to her that much. She went after me on FB and said she was sorry for everything and was willing to let bygones be bygones, and me trying to be mature, agreed. And we've gone peacefully for a few years ever since. I just choose to never actually do anything with her outside of the internet.

[AdminAssistant]

As I sat at my 10-year high school reunion last summer, I saw my former bullies chasing after their broods, trying to get them to behave, sit up straight, look nice for all of us....and acting just like their bratty mothers did when they were that age. It was pretty damned funny. There was one girl who would just whiiiiiiiine to the teachers to get whatever she wanted, in this god awful voice. I heard her daughter do the same thing, in the same exact voice. I actually lol'd at that one.

[blas87]

I went to my 5 year reunion for my first high school in 2010. Somehow I'd gotten invited even though I didn't graduate from there (I wasn't even considering going to the one that I actually graduated from. They had a multiple page FB war going on about what kind of beer to have).

I didn't expect a lot of change in 5 years, but I was surprised at some of the former preppies and jocks who made fun of me actually talked to me and were genuinely interested in where I'd moved to all those years ago and what I was up to lately. And I actually was interested in what they were up to. It kind of restored my faith in a few of them, anyway.

[jackfaire]

I mean, hell, if they are good adults now and are good teachers, that's fine. It just strikes me as so odd.

The disturbing thing is that kids get away with doing things to each other that adults go to jail for. And adults applaud them for just being kids.

Most kids when they get to High School get busy with growing up and sort of forget that last year they were torturing you. Eventually they forget they were ever that horrible and even rewrite history in their minds.

Everyone I have had look me up from Junior High has said hey and commented on how I was always such an angry kid and how they have never really known why that was.

It's hard not to get pissed at that. It's like, "Uhm you and your friends tortured me for years." But if you ever actually say that they think, "But I am a good person they must be crazy"

[DrFaroohk]

It is possible that some people change. I used to think people living certain lifestyles were horrible, corrupted people. I'd never outright do anything to them, but any issues that were being voted on? Hell no!

I've since done quite an about-face and am no longer that same guy...is it so wrong that I might act like a decent human being now instead of a bigotted asshole? Is it one of those things you're stuck with?

[HYHYBT]

No, changing for the better is of course good. As the headline says, it's *ironic* that former bullies (whether they remember themselves as such or not) pass along anti-bullying material. It's not a bad thing unless they're doing it as a cover for continued bad behavior.

I'm pretty sure most don't remember what they did.

There's a lot of what everybody does that we don't remember. And what was a big thing to you, and therefore stuck in your mind, might not have been one to them. Part of it, also, can be a different sort of perception: they might have thought even at the time that they weren't being mean to you.

And I'd say that can go both ways.

[jackfaire]

they might have thought even at the time that they weren't being mean to you..

In some ways that works in other ways it's psychotic.

Thinks of teasing you as just something they did to everyone. Okay I can accept they don't thin that was mean even though at the time that is exactly what they thought it was.

But beating you until your almost unconscious with a scooter that would have to be psychotic for them to not think of that as being mean.

The problem is that period of time when they have stopped and changed into the wonderful adults everyone thought they were while your laying there bruised and broken mentally and socially trying to get back up and figure out what just happened why suddenly your supposed to agree with everyone else that your tormentors are just great people.

It would be like working hard at a company for years your really close to the promotion you want then your rival beats you into a hospital bed and takes the job then afterwards he treats you nice and is never mean to another person and your supposed to be all, "Oh well he is a good person now" and gush over him just like everyone else.

[Racket_Man]

As I sat at my 10-year high school reunion last summer, I saw my former bullies chasing after their broods, trying to get them to behave, sit up straight, look nice for all of us....and acting just like their bratty mothers did when they were that age. It was pretty damned funny. There was one girl who would just whiiiiiiiine to the teachers to get whatever she wanted, in this god awful voice. I heard her daughter do the same thing, in the same exact voice. I actually lol'd at that one.

More proof that the Mother's Curse : "You just wait. One day when you have kids I hope they do the same thing to you. Then maybe you'll understand."actually works in most cases.

some parents will later laugh at this, some will pause, reflect and change, others will driver their kids insane to the point the parents wonder why the kids have cut off all contact.

[jackfaire]

More proof that the Mother's Curse :

I love that curse honestly it makes it easier to deal with my daughter not harder.

My daughter has my temper one I spent years learning to control. I can recognize the difference between a little frustrated and about to throw a bowling ball at someone's head.

Other things that she does that are from me I can handle. Her mom and grandma get frustrated not knowing how to deal with it.

[guywithashovel]

For my first five years out of high school, I worked at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in the town where I grew up (well, where I grew up from age 9 on). During that time, former classmates would often see me in there and stop and talk to me like we were best friends in school. Sometimes it was someone I rarely spent any time with.

For the most part, I didn't have many problems with the other kids in high school, especially not the last couple of years. That may have something to do with an observation one of my high school teachers made. She said that she always had fewer problems teaching the juniors and seniors as opposed to freshman and sophomores. She said that by junior year, many of the problems kids have either dropped out or have been taken over by the juvenile justice system.

Middle School was another story. In sixth grade, over half of my homeroom decided they hated my guts and acted like I had some kind of ultra contagious disease. As we got older, though, many of them got over that. Some of those kids actually started being nice to me once we hit high school.

My ten-year reunion was back in Summer 2010. I thought about going, but I didn't find out out it until it was over. The same thing happened with the five-year reunion. Maybe I'll catch the 15-year get-together.

[Millahtyme1983]

What's even more odd, is that some of the worst kids I ever dealt with on a daily basis....are either teaching assistants or real teachers now!

Every time I find out another former popular bully kid is now a teacher's aid or a teacher, I just want to roll my eyes.

There was this one kid who bullied me pretty much through all of elementary, junior high and high school. Junior year of high school he really kicked it up a notch and I actually dreaded going to the one class I had with him in it.

As an example, one time I broke my collar bone in a wrestling match. I went to class a few days later and the class was cold so I threw on a sweatshirt. He started pulling on the hanging sleeve so I pulled it inside out. He stuck his arm down the inside out sleevehole, pulled it back out and tied it to the chair. Reading the description it is kind of funny now, but remember I still had a freshly broken bone that had pressure being put on it from the pulling.

Come to find out 10 years later he is now a teacher at the HS. I know people can change and I try not to hold a gurdge but if I have kids at some point and for some reason am living in the city I grew up in I plan on sending them to private school just so I can avoid them having him as a teacher because I just can't picture him being that much better of a person.

[XCashier]

People do change. They grow up, the crap they used to think was funny they now realize is stupid and/or hurtful, and they stop doing it. It is entirely possible that those former bullies do regret their actions and promoting anti-bullying is their way of trying to make up for it.

True, some people are actual sociopaths who got off on bullying as kids and still get off on bullying as adults, but those, fortunately are rare. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to tell a true sociopath from a mere immature jerk.

If someone is genuinely sorry and apologizes for their behavior towards you, my suggestion is to take the higher ground and accept their apology. You don't have to be best buddies with them, but you can be civil. I'm not sure how to deal with an unapologetic former bully who suddenly acts like your best friend.

[jackfaire]

If someone is genuinely sorry and apologizes for their behavior towards you, my suggestion is to take the higher ground and accept their apology.

Except in most cases it isn't, "Oh I am so sorry I was like that" It's "Oh I was never like that I am a nice person and always was we were friends it was teasing"

They have completely rewritten your mutual history to where you got too upset about "friendly" teasing.

They have this disconnect where they were never a bully because they aren't that kind of person now.