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Recalling junior high cruelty
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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.
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As for my own experiences: I have teflon skin. Nothing sticks to me.
During my "basic school"-period (age 4 to 12), there was a group of boys in our class that, apparently, made life hell for lots of my classmates. Early on, I had a run-in with one of the cronies from the group. He took something from me, thinking that he could make me run after him trying to get it back. I didn't -- I threw a wooden clog at his head, which made him reconsider his tactics. I got my property back, and since then I never had any trouble with him or his group.
Though I must admit that, to this day, I react very badly to something being taken away from me in that way -- especially my glasses. If someone tries that trick, I will give them 10 seconds to return it, after which I will resort to any necessary physical violence to take them down. Thankfully I have never had to resort to this tactic, because I don't know whether I would be able to contain my anger.
In "highschool" (age 13-18), I wasn't exactly popular either. However, I found a group of other nerds to hang out with, and all the politics and bickering that was going on in the class just passed right by me. I didn't bother anybody, and nobody bothered me.
When I graduated, it was like I changed my clothes: my time in high-school simply 'peeled away', and I was reborn into another setting.
When I was 18, just before I went off to university, I met the 'leader' of the 'gang' from basic school. I had visited a friend, and I needed some blackboard chalk, so I popped into a toy store to get some. And lo and behold: he was working the cash register. He recognised me, and (to my surprise) immediately took a defensive, submissive posture.
He asked me how I was (I don't know why), and I told him that I had nearly finished highschool and that I would be off to study at a university in a few months. Then I asked whether he worked at the store full-time, and he meekly nodded. It became painfully apparent that he was wasting his days working retail in a toystore in a small village whereas I would flee the small towns and go off to make something off my life.
I had a hard time not bursting out in laughter seeing him like that.
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