Yes, bullying really does hurt and it lasts a long time…..take it from someone who was bullied in grammar school and to this day holds bad feelings about the person who did it to me.
First, I remember my first bullying incident which happened in 6th or 7th grade. I remember the person very well and what happened. It wasn’t until I fought back that it stopped. I was always taught to not fight by my parents even though I was a pretty good size when I was in grade school. As a result, I got a lot of Good Citizenship Awards but that didn’t stop me from getting bullied. It, in fact, made things worse! With a boy, though, there comes a time when all this has to come to a end. You either fight back and get the respect that stops it, you do violent things like what happened at Columbine, or sometimes it leads to other things that kids do to themselves when they feel like the whole world is against them.
When I got to high school, it started again, and stopped only after I again fought back and after I started playing football and showed how tough I could really be. I think that the game of football and other sports that require young boys to become men, so to speak, are important to males especially for them to gain the respect that is so important to them. Yes, respect is very important to males. Remember that girls. Don’t show your boyfriend or husband respect and you hurt them a great deal. In my opinion, it is one of causes of a lot of failed marriages. These are, at least, my feelings on the topic and I find that other writers about “males” agree with me.
As I got older and was still in high school, the bullying was tried on me one more time. I had borrowed my Grandmother’s new car and one of my best friends and I went double dating with a couple new girls from a near-by small town. The girls happened to be girlfriends of some fellas from that same town and they didn’t like it much that we came to their town and was screwing up their love life, I guess. Well, after our dates as we were heading home, they decided that they were going to do some bullying and run us out of their town.
As we were leaving their town, they suddenly showed up and started bumping into the back of my Grandmother’s car. Instead of stopping and engaging in an outnumbered fight, we left.
I happened to have a good friend who was a State Policeman and he went with me back the town in question, 5 miles away. He got in the back seat and got down so no one could see him when we got back in town. I looked all over the place trying to find these guys but they never showed their faces, darn it! They would have gotten quite a surprise, if they would have still been around and tried to cause any trouble again. The next day, I went to the Sheriff’s Dept. and swore out a warrant for the driver of the car bothering us. He was picked up, arrested , and put in jail over night. Never had a problem with those guys again! That’s what it took to stop this behavior, this time.
The reason that I said that bullying hurts and lasts a long time with those being bullied is that even today I harbor very bad feeling regarding those guys that did this to us. It was an embarrassment and gave me feelings that I cannot get rid of even to this day… over 50 years later! If I lived near those guys, I would still go after them to settle the score. I am not kidding. Just ask my wife.
So, bullying does a lot of damage to those being bullied, especially to males because respect is so important to them. We don’t forget things like what happened to us that one night even though it has been many moons since it happened. This is one of the reasons that is so important to teach kids as they are growing up to not do this. Do your part to teach others not to engage in this very hurtful activity.
Written by Ted Anderson. Insurance agent Ted W. Anderson worked in sales for half a century, has lived in Albany since 1993. He is president of Dover Lane Neighborhood Watch. Send email to him at aj@thealbanyjournal.com.
