Bullies, part one

Now that Trainwrecks is completely derailed, I’m guessing that violentacres will become my next guilty pleasure.

Her most recent post about bullies struck a chord with me.  After moving during the 6th grade, I was bullied several times.  Perhaps more ostracised than bullied, but either way, it was no fun.  Looking back, I can think of any number of ways I could have made things easier on myself, but I was 12 when it started, and sadly, one episode of ostracism seemed to breed another.  Even switching schools couldn’t remedy the damage to my once healthy self esteem. 

Leaving Saint Ann the most popular girl in the 6th grade, it never dawned on me that I might not be well liked at my new school.  I took it for granted I would make new friends and I was more concerned about missing my old ones.  In hindsight, I’m sure my complaining about how great my old school and my old friends and my old town was not the best way to set out to make new friends.

The month of November was a little lonely for me at my new school, ACCS.  I had an hour-long bus ride both ways, and even though some of my classmates were on the bus, they weren’t falling all over themselves to become my friend, unlike the kids back at Saint Ann. 

In December, I got a Christmas card with a small Christmas ornament from Tracie, a classmate of mine with the sunniest smile, and a sparkling personality.  And yet the port wine stain birthmark on her face was the first thing I noticed about her.  Tracie and I had been assigned to a special science project since we were clearly bored in class, so we got to spend hours together in the library studying up on soils.  We dubbed ourselves “the soil sisters.”

While Tracie and I had a terrific time together, clicking the same way I’ve clicked with all the good friends that have come later in life, in the pit of my stomach, I felt that I was destined for cooler friends.  Tracie hung out with the geeky kids (and in hindsight, I was CLEARLY one of the geeky kids), we’re talking buck toothed and (gasp!) handicapped kids, and I wanted to hang with the cool kids.

So I did a little social climbing.  Having a friend boosted my confidence, made me seem a little less desperate, and suddenly, the kids on the bus were including me in their shenanigans.  Yay, cool friends!  I dropped Tracie and her geek squad immediately.

One day, an eighth grade boy named Henry took a liking to me.  He announced this to me by buying ice cream for my entire class.  By my calculations, this would have cost around 15 dollars, or over 6 months of my allowance.  I was embarrassed, but I ate the ice cream and I avoided speaking with Henry. 

Soon after that, Henry brought me a gift box.  It contained a hideous looking heart shaped locket with a digital watch on it.  It was ugly, and even if it had been gorgeous, I didn’t like Henry, I didn’t want any more attention from him, and I set off to give the locket watch back to him. 

My bus friends grabbed it from me before I could return it to Henry, broke it, spit in it, and then brought it to him.  I was mortified, and yet I didn’t have the guts to tell Henry to his face that I didn’t like him and I didn’t want any more gifts.  I also didn’t have the guts to stand up to my cool friends and try to make sure Henry’s gift was returned to him in the same condition it came to me.   

Even after my cool friends returned the locket to Henry, completely trashed, the ice cream deliveries continued–not for the full class, but enough to share with my friends.  Again, rather than returning the Mickey Mouse bars and bomb pops or talking to him, I simply distributed the ice cream among my friends.  After the first delivery, I never ate any of the ice cream from him.

Soon after the locket incident, the phone calls, notes, and playground conversations with my friends stopped abruptly.  My cool friends quit talking to me, started spreading rumors about me, and my social life dried up completely.  The hour long bus rides were torture.  I think I even started sitting up closer toward the front to get away from the teasing.

One day, I wrote Courtney, who I considered my best friend among the “ostracisers” a note asking why people didn’t like me.  (Clearly, I have a problem with direct confrontation.)  Courtney got off the bus at the same stop as me and she had invited me to spend the night at her house a few times before I had been deemed unworthy.

Courtney, it seems, was motivated to get me the answers I wanted.  She set out with markers and stickers and a sparkly ruler and created a three page form on which all my cool friends could document why they didn’t like me.  The girls wrote in bubble writing and magic marker, the boys generally used pencil.   

I read it, and I cried in the bathroom.  The most common response within the sampling of reasons they didn’t like me was that I was mean to Henry.  But they were mean to Henry too!  They egged me on!  It wasn’t fair!  I wiped away my tears, washed my face, and returned to the classroom angry instead of sad.  In an act of passive-aggressive desperation, I took the letter back to the waste basket by the teacher’s desk and I deliberately missed the can.  As shitty as I felt after reading that letter, I got a tiny rush when I considered the off chance that the letter would be picked up off the floor and read by a grown up rather than being returned to the trash bin.

The next day, Ms. Shaw, our 6th grade teacher, shut the door and read the entire letter aloud to the entire class.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so mortified in my entire life.  Every parent of every child involved (except mine) received a copy of the letter.  

A few of the “cool kids” were forced to spend some time with me that school year and into the summer.  My mother was baffled that I kept being invited to play tennis with one boy, considering I didn’t know a slice from a volley.  But I went along anyway.  I accepted invitations to racquet clubs and country clubs that these kids were forced to extend by parents who were probably ashamed of their children and who likely pitied me.  I hated every minute of it, but I didn’t feel like I could say no. 

I wanted to be popular, after all.

Finally, I spilled the beans to my parents when they realized that I had changed some of the grades on my report card.  They met with the ACCS principal, angered that they hadn’t been notified of my social problems and my falling grades.  I don’t think they ever punished me for white-outing my report card.

Mom and dad stopped payment on the tuition check for the first semester of 7th grade, and enrolled me in public school.   

Even after I ditched her for my social climbing adventure, Tracie welcomed me back in the geek squad while I was being ostracised and for the remainder of the school year.  I never saw her after that, and I never thanked her for her kindness.  I think of her from time to time and I wish I were brave enough to write a note expressing my gratitude and send it to her parent’s address.

Stay tuned for Bullying, part 2, or Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire.

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