Bullying is not a laughing matter, but when you have a friend who shares similar experiences sometimes you can find laughter in the pain.
Bullying sucks in the moment and unfortunately you may encounter bullys for the rest of your life. You might have a bully at work, college, the bar, or anywhere the popular kid’s hangout.
My friend and I were reminiscing on our past experiences with bullying. One time in middle school, I had this kid who decided to bully me for all of 8th grade. We would argue in front of our entire class. Whenever I would talk he told me to “shut up” and then he would mock me, laugh at me and everything in between. Now, one time in high school, I had a similar experience. This one girl in class randomly told me to “shove it up my butt.” By the end of the bullying session, she told me she was “just kidding” but it must not have been a joke if she had to explain to me that she was just kidding. While I was hurt in that moment, looking back, it’s a funny experience that is easy to laugh at.
Thinking back to your middle school and high school years and how we reacted to our bullies is much different than how we would react to bullies today (in our twenties). Today, my friends and I figure that instead of recoiling, we found that laughter would be a better reaction. We believe it would probably prompt the bully to stop considering they mostly attack people who recoil. Instead of pulling away and being afriad of the bully, we would not have let the bullying get to us. Obviously when you are younger, you are more sensitive and more likely to be affected by what other people think about you. But now, we would have better comebacks and we wouldn’t just stop and cry about it.
It is nice to know that even though during that experience we felt all alone, being able to connect with others through these terrible incidences shed light on the bigger picture of life and how friends can make even the darkest of situations into a funny story.