Recalling junior high cruelty

theferrett asked a question, and he got a lot of answers that caused even him difficulty to read through. He asked about the cruelty of growing in junior high. The responses are indeed tough.

zoethe asks where the tormentors are now.

I've entitled the junior high section of my bio "junior high cruelty", which is an apt name. The cruel pain of growing up. In junior high, I was always in that group that sat outside instead of eating with everyone else in the caf. I avoided the hate of P.E. Indeed, I was one of those nerdy outcasts, considered a teacher's pet by many. Yet my relatively pristine childhood is probably why I'm so naive now.

But I also remember being the tormentor once. In junior high, I took part in Math COUNTS, a team competition involving math. Now there was this one Jewish kid who was sort of my rival, as we were the most talented people in my grade. There was a time when we were friends. Then he started dating one of the other girls on our team. And we all mercilessly made fun of him for it (cause, well, we didn't understand). Heck, I remember making up an entire song to make fun of them. As junior high kids, we didn't know when to stop. Then one day the guy exploded and literally choked one of my other friends. He recovered and it took some time to smooth things over after that, but things were never quite the same.

And so I began to learn the fine line between teasing and tormenting.