As a former bully, I like to say it is always a joke, calling names, making them uncomfortable, it's always a joke, done for a moment of laughter.
I didn't knew how much it hurted them, fuck didn't even know what I was doing is wrong,
For me all of it was a joke back then, and thought everyone took it as it
I had the shit beat out of me about once a week, on average. Sometimes more, sometimes it'd go a few weeks without a beating. About 10 years. in 11th grade, they didn't beat me as much, but they like to play games like spitting on me, and I had to keep score and tell them at the end of the day who won. In 12th grade, most of them graduated, so it was only 3 on 1. I beat the ever-living shit out of them. that summer, when they came back from college, Brian Place took a baseball bat and six of his friends to beat me into a coma.
He was the son of the town sheriff, so I was told I was lucky they weren't pressing charges against ME.
I used to be quite the artist, but after that last beating, I can't draw a straight line anymore. My hand trembles too much.
Met one of the kids who beat the crap out of me about 20 years later out of the blue. He started talking to me about the "good old days". When I told him he and his friends left me for dead, he said he thought I was faking. He didn't know I was in a coma for a day and a half. He didn't remember the baseball bat, and he thought it was all "just boys being boys".
Yes. The bully often thinks it's all a joke.
The funny thing is, he never said he was sorry, even after I told him exactly what happened. He just mumbled a lot, made an excuse, and left. Not that I expect an apology. Bullies don't do that. Even if they figure it out later, they just kinda push it out of their mind and move on. People like to remember the good things and forget the bad. Honestly, it's been over 35 years. I think Brian dropped dead at age 40. Can't remember any of the others, so the chances are they are just like what's his face and pushed it out of their minds before moving on with their lives.
Oh, don't feel too bad for me.
After I went to college, I took all that rage and became a bill collector and worked for several banks over the years. I made it my life's mission to make people feel just as bad as I did. I assure you, I ruined FAR MORE LIVES than Brian and his posse ever did. I made it my life's mission to torture people, and getting paid a commission for it was just icing on the cake.
Being a bully and torturing people was fun. Nobody cares about the weak and we are all alone in this world. Either give up and die where you fall, or get up and be even stronger than the ones that tortured you. That's what Brian taught me. I was better at it than anyone else. Oh, I was very good. I got stories for days I could share about the ways I made people suffer, all without breaking the law. That made it so much more fun. having limits just made I like a video game set on hard mode.
Eventually, I realized I was evil and stopped, but not before I spent about 15 years ruining people's lives, costing them their homes, cars, jobs, money, and defiling one guy's mother's grave (that last one is a funny story, let me tell you). After all, being unable to make friends or relate to people made it hard to have any empathy for other people. I mean, nobody cared when I got the shit beat out of me. Not the teachers, not my fellow students, nobody. I just figured that's the way the world was. I wasn't a bully.
I was just ahead of the curve.
...
I guess I'm curious.
So,
@Indicterra, What do you think the person you bullied learned from you?
