I came...
....from a different school system so when I arrived at my new, rather rough, comprehensive I was put up a year within weeks to better be "at my level". (I ain't that bright, just came from a progressive school system).

So here I am, plummy brit accent, love of books and socially inept in quite an aggressive environment where all my peers are older than me.

And I want to say thankyou to the little scrotes that zeroed in on me as a target because they taught me the most useful 2 words in the English langauge.

Disproportionate response.

Sean Connery covered it best in "Untouchables", if they skin a fist, pull a knife, if they bring a knife pull a gun. If they threaten to put you in hospital threaten to put them in the morgue. Never back down, never give an inch and never never never let bullying scum dictate to you for one second.

After a rather.....erm....busy... first week that included several fairly vicious beatings I never had a moment's trouble for the rest of my school career. If you can stand there with blood pouring from your nose and threaten to bite off an ear, well, nine times out of ten they'll leave you alone.

Doesn't work for everyone and probably isn't appropriate to adult life but I do believe that repeated incidences of bullying require someone to choose to be a victim, tho sometimes it's impossibly hard to realise that's what you're doing.
(Pig_of_Doom, Thu 14 May 2009, 19:40, 2 replies)

You're correct
bullies generally search out the easy targets. Like with any kind of security, you just need to make yourself look less attractive than the next guy.

People in positions of authority don't help much by telling you all kinds of bullshit about turning the other cheek, "ignore them and they'll go away" and, possibly the worst, "tell somebody about it".

Of course, there's limits to how far you can take it and your response will sometimes lead to you being punished more than the bully (I was once dragged from the playground by my ear for leaving the school's top athlete with blood gushing between his fingers from his bloody nose*) but life's not about easy choices unfortunately

* And, of course, the girls that used to cluster around him admonished me for doing that. I think that was a formative experience for me wrt the female kind.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Thu 14 May 2009, 19:53, closed)

no..
www.b3ta.com/questions/bullies/post422533#qotw-post-422553
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Thu 14 May 2009, 21:22, closed)