A Vague Memory of a Bully

There has been a ton of talk recently about bullying. It’s all over the media. CNN, Fox News, and many television shows that we watch focus on the topic of bullying. Even in sports, we can’t escape it. There was the basketball coach that called his players names and tossed basketballs at them, then there was the more recent even in which Richie Incognito supposedly bullied Jonathan Martin, his teammate, to the point where he quit the team. There can’t be any person less incognito than Richie Incognito right now. I’ll try to avoid the lame jokes now.

I’ve thought a great deal about the subject over the last few years as the topic has been brought up more and more. I’ve tried to figure out why it is so reported on now. Has bullying become worse since I was a kid? I don’t think it has. Have we, as a society, simply tried to remove bad practices from the culture, as we had previously with sexism or racism? I definitely think it’s the latter. Americans spend so much time thinking about ways that they can improve on things that went wrong in the past. Maybe they were bullied as children and feel that the want to stop this kind of behavior for a new generation.

I’m saying right now that it might not be the right thing to do.

I was bullied as a child. This is the first time I am mentioning that word based on what happened to me. Was it considered bullying then? No. Is it considered bullying now? Your darn right it is, but that’s unimportant to me.

Children love magic things and the vastness of the world. All kids see something for the first time and think to themselves how great that is. Every single kid I knew in first or second grade wanted to be a fireman or police officer. I would be surprised if even one of them was one of those two things now. It looked like something that was awesome to them. I can remember wanting to be a bus driver because the busses had so many flashy buttons and toggle switches. I thought it poked like KITT from Knight Rider. I want nothing to do with a bus now. As a kid, I loved super hero cartoons and movies, particularly Superman. I loved the idea that somebody had the strength to overpower the bad guys and he could fly. That was the big thing. He could fly into the air. I liked him so much that I went as Superman for two Halloweens in a three year stretch. For some reason, other people saw this pattern and started picking on me, saying that I thought I was Superman.

I bothered me. I liked Superman and my friends and I would play as superheroes at recess. My brothers and I would play with the action figures at home. That didn’t mean that I thought I was Superman. I would get hit and knocked around. They would then give me some remark about not being made of steel after all. One guy in particular used to pick on me every recess for a year or two, just because of that, calling me Superman and taunting me.

This continued on for years, even as I buried my love for that character in a unmarked grave. I wouldn’t watch the shows or the movies. I turned to other things, but the harassment kept coming, as did those people that thought that picking on the kid because they heard he liked Superman.

It died down during high school, mostly because I was on the football team, but it was like nails on a chalkboard when people would bring it up, especially after a good play. The last thing I wanted to hear when I went back to the huddle was somebody saying “Way to go, Superman.” 

If I believed for one second that anytime I was called this that it was because they meant it in a good way, I would have been fine with it. The looks that I was given, as well as the picking on that I took, was at times unbearable. I hated going to school because of it.

For years, there was a rumor that I had broken my arm while jumping off a desk, pretending to be Superman. It even came up at graduation, while the presenters were supposed to be talking about things that happened throughout our school careers. To the best of my knowledge, I have never broken my arm, or any bone, by jumping off a desk or any other structure. I’ve had a couple of broken fingers and two broken ankles, but I know what I was doing when any of those happened.

Everything that happened to me culminated at my graduating class’s party. It was the last time that I would see most of these people for more than fifteen years. It was a bowling party and I was put into a group with somebody that I’d never really liked all that much, and I’m positive that she felt the same way about me.

At some point I tossed a strike. I heard from this girl, somewhere behind me, “Way to go, Superman.”

I turned around and said, “F*ck you.” That was all I said, and the look on her face was priceless. After everything I’d been through, two words gave me a better feeling than anything else I’d ever done. No amount of fun, drinking, sex, or video games, had ever given me the feeling I had at that moment. I was free. This was the last time that I was going to see them. My two words somehow liberated me from those horrible feelings I’d had when I was younger. They’re attacks meant nothing to me anymore.

She did apologize to me later on, and I accepted. The only thing I said was that it was pretty sad when these were our last moments as a group and some people had to spend it using juvenile attempts at teasing. I didn’t have to say that much. The other two words had already said it for me. She gave that apology and we moved on.

I’m not giving this confession of my youth as a complaint. Far from it. Looking back, although it was difficult to get through at the time, I was stronger for it. Now, putting up with the things I’m going through in my relationships, especially my divorce, I see that I am a better person for what I endured. Whether they were right or wrong for what they did, I would like to thank them for making me who I am today, a better, more assertive person than I was then.

Maybe that was what Richie Incognito was trying to do, but I think that he crossed the line. Only time will tell what is going to happen there. Some people can handle it better than others. I had trouble at times, but I managed to get through it better than I could have ever imagined.

To al of those people that decided that it was funny to tease me about something as juvenile as Superman or hurt other people with your crude attempt at humor, I have only two things to say to all of you:

F*ck you, and thank you.