Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-99.50.241.111-20130422210148/@comment-5427236-20130429045855

The reason I don't have many problems with bullying is because I don't let anyone bully me. I learned how actually in elementary school.

I had this friend, who for anonymity's sake I'll call Amy, who I'd been best friends with since kindergarten. Seriously, we were inseperable. Then, in about 3rd grade, this other girl shows up (I'll just call her Kate) and she starts making friends with us. She seemed nice at first, but about halfway through the year, she started singling me out. Insulting me, always making me the bad guy when we played, always refusing to share snacks with me, but sharing with everyone else. It sounds small, but as a little 3rd grader, it was extremely hurtful, but more because Amy didn't even say a word against it.

As a sort of experiment one day, I hung back and didn't play with them at recess. They didn't even notice I was gone. I got the message then; I wasn't wanted.

Amy and Kate always had little one day fights, and Amy would come hang out with me for a while, but never more than a day. Then she went back to Kate like there was no problem. I generally just hung out on my own, and that's how I went through elementary school.

In middle school, I got it into my head that any friends I made, just like Amy, would eventually abandon me, so I resolved not to make any friends at all. So 6th and 7th grade was spent largely reading alone in the library, dodging questions on whether I'd like to invite friends over to my house from my parents, and doing everything I could to not be noticed. It actually worked; few bullies targeted me, and those few that did I made sure knew that I wasn't about to take any crap from anyone.

Okay, maybe not the healthiest solution, but it worked. I have friends now. At the beginning of this year (freshman in high school) I found an awesome group of quirky, nice people. Amy came around and now we're friends. And Kate... Well, she has "friends" if you catch my drift.