troll – The View from a Drawbridge

The Un-Bullies of Social Media

Words of encouragement can make all the difference in the world.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a teen or preteen these days. School drama must take on a whole new dimension when it follows you home on your smart phone. Nowadays the haters have a cyber loudspeaker.

At least when people bullied me and treated me horribly back in the 70’s, I could leave school and get a break from it. I could bury myself in a book or a TV show. While the pain was still there, and the damage to my self-esteem was still being done, at least I could come up for air. Not so in the present day. These kids are in it every single waking moment.

Fortunately, through it all, I see a constant, if faint, drumbeat of what I call Un-Bullies. For example, there was a young man being bullied in his school for his love of books. His mother helped him create a Little Free Library, and put it out on a LFL Stewards forum that she wanted us to send postcards of encouragement to her son, and dozens of us did. I don’t know what other people said, but I told that amazing young man that I thought he was the coolest kid ever! I wish someone had told me that when I was his age.

I’ve also noticed that for every troll that says something cruel on a public forum, there seem to be ten people who step up and say, “No, you’re wrong.” They are the ones who reassure people that they’re beautiful, strong, outstanding, amazing, talented.

It takes courage to stand up to bullies. I admire anyone who takes the time and makes the effort to do so. And every person who takes that step empowers others to follow suit.

It may not seem like much, but words of encouragement can make all the difference in the world.

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Bully for You, Maybe, but not for Me

Brace yourself, dear reader, for I am in a foul mood.

I am gratified to see that there are now many campaigns out there designed to stop bullying in our schools. Three very good ones, but by no means the only ones, are www.stopbullying.gov/‎, www.stopbullyingnowfoundation.org/‎, and www.meanstinks.com/‎ .

I wish there had been programs like these when I was growing up. I was the smallest kid. I wore glasses. And I was often the extreme minority in schools located in very rough neighborhoods. I learned to curl up into a ball and let them beat on me until they got bored and walked away, the whole time praying that my kidneys would emerge from the fracas intact.

And except for one brief shining moment when I snapped and beat the living crap out of a girl who had been beating me up for months, the passive route has been mine, either literally or figuratively, my entire life. If stuffing one’s anger were an Olympic sport, I’d definitely have a chest full of gold medals.

Always be polite. Don’t make waves. Pick your battles. Take the high road. Do unto others.

But this morning I woke up furious and thought, dammit, WHY? Why should I just take it and take it and take it?

I am beginning to see a clear pattern, and it has me outraged. Bullying, you see, takes on many, many forms, and it’s not simply reserved for childhood. It’s not as if people suddenly start treating you decently once you graduate.

Have you ever experienced one of these types of bullying?

Being picked on or manipulated by a sibling,
humiliated or beaten up by a schoolmate,
beaten by another adult,
harassed by a coworker,
intimidated by someone,
treated like crap by a supervisor,
or raped (and yes, in my opinion this falls under the bullying umbrella because it’s a form of violence and aggression in the extreme)?
Have you been on the receiving end of road rage,
treated rudely by a stranger,
or treated rudely by a loved one on such a regular basis that you begin to think you deserve it?
Has anyone ever tried to make you feel crazy for feeling the way you feel,
or tried to make you feel stupid or silly for not sharing their opinion?
Has anyone ever robbed you,
cheated you out of money,
lied to you in order to get an advantage,
or manipulated you to make you do something you didn’t want to do?
Has anyone put you at risk and expected you to keep quiet about it?
Has anyone gossiped about you to damage your reputation,
gone out of their way to ruin an experience that you were enjoying,
or gotten drunk or drugged to have an “excuse” for their unacceptable behavior?
Has someone you loved or trusted told you to just sit back and take outrageous behavior so that they themselves don’t have to deal with the drama?
Have you ever been a victim of a troll on Facebook or your blog?
Has someone ever hidden behind their internet anonymity to behave obnoxiously when they wouldn’t have the courage to do so otherwise?
Has anyone ever cut in front of you in line?
Has someone scammed you out of your hard earned money? (For my personal experience with that, see “Andy Johnson, SHAME on You!!!“)

I have experienced all of these things at one time or another. And I’ve made excuses for people, looked the other way, maintained my dignity, done the right thing, taken one for the team, or thought, “Okay, maybe I deserved that,” my whole freakin’ life. At one point or another I have been a welcome mat for every douche bag within a 50 mile radius.

I have also spent an inordinate amount of time sticking up for the underdogs of this world, never truly recognizing that I was one of them and that I should put as much energy into sticking up for myself as I do for others.

Maybe all of this is coming to the surface for me now because I have been catching it from all directions recently. Maybe it’s because I feel like we, as a nation, are being bullied by our politicians. Maybe it’s just that at age 48, the scales have finally fallen from my eyes.

Whatever it is, I think people may start seeing a side of me that they have never seen before. I’m done with expecting respect and being sadly mistaken. Now it’s time to demand it, require it, and accept nothing less.

I am done with curling up in a ball. Now is the time to realize that not only do I deserve respect, but also that those who do not give me respect do not deserve to be a part of my life.

Trapped on the Washing Machine in a Powder Blue Tux

“You know, midgets are because humans used to breed with trolls.” These words of wisdom were issuing forth from my coworker, “C”. I wish I could say that I was shocked, but after years of working with this guy, nothing could surprise me anymore. There was no point in trying to explain that trolls are mythical creatures, or that midget is a derogative term for dwarf. This guy was just too unrepentantly dense for that. He also believed that the Amazons, the mythological race of female warriors, actually existed and still exist, because he’d read it in a comic book. It’s C’s world. We’re just living in it.

He once called in sick to our drawbridge using the excuse that his pants had gotten caught in an ATM machine.

I’ll just let that sentence stand alone so it can sink in.

One night he walked into work in a state of high dudgeon because one of his relatives had been incarcerated unjustly. Apparently the guy was a house painter with no access to a bathroom during his work day, and he felt the need to masturbate. With no good place to do so, he just did it in the yard, and a 10 year old girl walked by. When I mentioned that there were, perhaps, more appropriate places to do his thing, C responded that without access to a bathroom, what was he supposed to do? “Uh…wait ‘til he got home?” C did not speak to me for the rest of the shift. He actually thought that that was a punishment to me.

Waxing nostalgic one evening, he told us about his honeymoon. He took his bride down the street to the Gator Lodge. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this fine establishment, the Gator Lodge can be rented by the hour, and there’s a prostitute stroll right out front for your convenience. Nothing but the best for his darling wife! Hearing this, my best friend said to C, “I bet you wore a powder blue tuxedo and a frilled shirt at the wedding.” “Well, it was the STYLE back then!!!!” C snapped. I laughed so hard that I actually sank to the floor. I thought that only happened in books.

He also couldn’t come to work one time because his wife was stuck on top of the washing machine. Hate when that happens.

He once came to work feeling triumphant because he was now positive that his girlfriend’s child was his. He was certain because that very day he was sitting next to the boy, both had their feet on the coffee table, and their feet were exactly the same! Jeez, and people have been wasting money on DNA tests all this time.

C no longer works with me, and we’ve long since lost touch. I will say this about the guy: he meant no harm to anyone, and he was a constant source of entertainment if not logic.