#673

I read something that resonated with me earlier by one of my favorite diarists, NotKieran. I don’t regularly read anyone on OD but if I did there’s a pretty good chance I’d read this guy. He’s by turns insightful and amusing, mostly amusing and that makes me happy. So he wrote about bullying and yeah, it reminded me a lot of how I reacted to the problem too, you can read it here: 

http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A434612&entry=26582&mode=date

tl;dr: Not letting it bother you is only one strategy to deal with bullying, another is to stop it by being more extreme than the bully to the point that they want nothing to do with you anymore. 

My first reaction to his entry was, yeah, that’s what worked for me. What stopped people from getting on me and harassing me? My being much more willing to hurt them than they hurt me. Like NK said, it’s not giving what you get. It’s giving much more than what you get, it’s, if they stab you with a pencil, stabbing them with the sharp end of the compass. There are easier targets and often the bully will go to them instead. That’s what happened to me.
 

My second is…that’s a functional response, it only works in a small situation under certain circumstances. The bully could be much more violent and angry than you are willing to go. And even if it did work for the individual, it doesn’t change the circumstance. It’ll just be another person being screwed with instead of you. Short of killing the person, nothing will not remove the situation. And killing the person will create another situation. Hm.

But the question is, what’s better? 

Can’t really think of anything outside of sweeping world-changing kinda deals which will never happen because the world is too petty and self-centered. Hrm. Well hell.