Mmmm
Don't really have funnies for this one. Had a really bad time as a kid.

I went to a bad school. Not the roughest going, by any stretch, but just lawless (one guy got whipped over a table with a bike chain in the lunch hall - no one ever prosecuted) and full of very bored kids. It was the local comp in a little, very dull, town and wasn't very good academically, or for hobbies, sport etc., so struggled to keep anyone's interest. As a result we had little to do except fight and make trouble.

Several of my friends got expelled for ridiculously stupid stuff. One actually lit up a spliff on the schoolbus and refused to put it out. Another punched through a classroom window, necessitating a few weeks off while his hand healed. He came back, and punched out the same window on the first day back - expelled. Sixth Form was a lot better but High School generally was crap.

The bar was set so low that I used to get stick for being spoddy, even though I really wasn't and actually used to get terrible school reports and barely try. I think it was just because I read books and liked indie rather than dance and stuff. This also made me gay, obviously (because mid-nineties dance was so, so macho...)

Anyway, come puberty and suddenly we're all big lads and fights aren't so scrappy and negligible any more. People actually get hurt. I tried to keep out of any physical violence partly just for my own self-preservation as a result, but there was this one group of lads who just wouldn't get off my back. The fact I was ignoring it just made it worst. The only thing that actually made it better was reacting - if I fought I generally came off pretty well, and it made them think twice about provoking me again (for at least a week or two, anyway).

So a cycle develops of the odd thing kicking off here and there interspersed with periods where I just got on with stuff and tried to ignore the provocations. Sometimes I got suspended, sometimes them, sometimes all of us, and a few people ended up in hospital along the way. It was just grim - I hated school, hated them, hated the whole thing.

What happened in the end? Nothing much... It just carried on till most of them left at 16 and I actually settled down at that point and did some work in Sixth Form, got decent results, went to Uni, etc.

And them? One died in a car crash at nineteen, one's a junkie last I heard, one got involved with some very dodgy people in Birmingham through drugs and is probably dead, a junkie, or in prison, and one did pretty well for himself, and I even ended up having a chat and a pint with him when I bumped into him a few year's back (he said sorry, I said no problem).

Did I win then? Not really. For ages I struggled with thinking that it kind of shaped me without me wanting it to - being bullied pretty much defined my teenage years. It shaped my personality. The good bits are being quite independent and not really giving a shit about taking stick if I know it's just stick, but on the other hand it probably made me a bit fiery and aggressive at times too, because I'm quick to fight fire with fire if someone gets aggressive with me.

I spent a long time wondering what I'd have turned out like if those years had been different. Would I be a different person? A better person? Worse?

In the end though, I just came to terms a few years after with the fact that I am who I am through whatever happened and you can't get bitter about it. There's always going to be people inclined to get their jollies from belittling and tormenting others, and the best way to win is to get on with your own thing. Having that pint with the guy and just accepting the apology without any fuss was probably the best thing for my own self-worth I've ever done.

And after that I just laid it to rest and I pretty much never think about it anymore, until something like this question comes up. Much better that way than spending the rest of my life with the mindset of a victim because of some arseholes I had the misfortune to go school with, I reckon.

I told you there were no funnies... will have to think of some for another post.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 13 May 2009, 13:22, 2 replies)

That was the most depressing thing I've read all day.

( WormuIus, Wed 13 May 2009, 14:17, closed)

It's not a cheery topic
Trying hard to think of related funny stories but struggling so far.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 13 May 2009, 14:27, closed)