So I've just been thinking about bullies. This is something I haven't had much hands-on experience with, ever, really. I was always a bit of a loser until I got to VCE, but nobody ever bothered to attack me that severely, verbally or physically. Apparently, I am acceptable. Which is surprising given my sexuality, but whatever.
You know in the movies (or maybe in your own life, depending on how boring you really are) when the 10-year-old kid gets home from school with bruises, and his maw-maw says something optimistic like "bullies are just cowards!" or "they're just jealous." Well, after careful deliberation, I've kind of made sense of these obvious products of maternal denial and deduced that there is, in fact, some truth to them.
Against my initial better judgment, I now agree - bullies ARE cowards. The blatant roadblock here is the notion that bullies can't logically be cowards if they go around, risking detention, beating the crap out of kids who are too timid to fight back. Nobody who risks detention could possibly be a coward, right! Wrong. Risking detention ain't what it's all about. The point of bullying boils down to a simple premise: asserting oneself. Arrogantly, at that.
Who needs to assert themselves to a bunch of people who don't like you/are afraid of you? Answer: low self-esteem. You feel so bad about yourself that you turn to bullying to give yourself some worth, because with bullying, you can be king. Now kids, children like these are cowards for the very reason that they can't accept themselves for who they are. People like this are weak and insecure, and they're jealous of the life you have that they don't. But because of this god complex every child under the age of 15 seems to have nowadays, they have a hard time distinguishing between compliments and insults (I blame Facebook. I just do) and regardless, whenever they feel threatened, they attack. Even if you're not threatening them.
Example. Some kid at my school posted a status on Facebook earlier, something along the lines of "me and this guy and that guy have poured our blood, sweat and tears into this." Tactless as I am, though I'd be whimsical and comment "You can get AIDS that way." Now I ask you, is that insulting? No, but it is a little rude, I guess. But like a 16 year old boy is going to care if I politically-incorrectly mention AIDS on his Facebook profile.
He then promptly thought of my message as being a threat, even though it was merely a conversation starter. "Says you" he says, indicating I would be all-knowing about AIDS cos I'm gay, attacking me. He then, cowardly, deleted both posts, hiding from the version of himself in which he could be unacceptable in the eyes of his mates.
Lord knows I hate kids like this. Like, if someone mentions something to you with a shred of negativity in it (cos come on, AIDS ain't a positive thing), it's not a just reason to attack them. Man up and face to yourself that you are a coward, and probably jealous of my ability to start a conversation freely with someone I barely know. I'm sorry - I'm different, so I must be ridiculed. Not that I'm insulted; I just pity the dickhead.
