Monday, October 09, 2017

The Bully Forgets. The Victim Doesn't.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. I believe it. How else can I explain the fact that I have attended quite a few high school reunions?

A few weeks ago I went to yet another class reunion for my old alma mater, The South Will Rise Again High School. You know the one. Our mascot was a Rebel soldier, and the school song was Dixie. I do not even exaggerate. (I heard that just recently the school changed its mascot and song. High time.)

Anyway, I've gone to my share of these reunion things, and they are always the same. Most of the people even look the same, which is pretty amazing given the number attached to the reunion.

When I was in middle school, I was bullied quite a bit. In those days, boys taunted smart girls for being too smart, and girls taunted girls over perceived flirtations with boys. I got tons of the former and a little bit of the latter.

In 1970, I had one conversation with a kid in my sixth grade class, and his girlfriend did not stand for it. She organized her posse, and they knocked the crap out of me when no one was looking. It would have happened again, except that the next time they got me in their sights, my dog was with me. He put an end to that bullshit just by suggesting he was going to bite them.

Free advice: You never go wrong adopting a mid-sized mutt.

Whenever I go to my high school reunions, the girl who bullied me is always there. She dropped out of high school, but using a marriage to one of our grads and a lot of revisionist history, she now presents herself as a bona fide diploma-holder from SWRAHS.

And she always comes running up to me and wraps me in a bear hug and asks me how I'm doing.

This baffled me in 1997 and again in 2007. Now it is 2017, and I have learned a lot about bullying from being a high school teacher.

Turns out bullies often forget all about their behavior, if they even perceive it as bullying at all. Did you know that? It surprised me to learn that.

One other thing I learned as a high school teacher that I already knew: Victims do not forget being bullied. They remember names, places, and events in stark detail.

And so, every time this former bully female comes running up and bear-hugs me, I stiffen and exchange the minimum pleasantries, while coyly suggesting that I don't recall her graduating with us. She always says she didn't have the money for senior pictures, so she isn't in the yearbook.

This conversation has been repeated three times: 1997, 2007, and 2017.

Will I be insane enough in 2027 to go back to another of these ridiculous beer-fests in an obscure Moose Lodge on the edge of the Potomac River? Gods! Make me sane! I'm never going to forget that bully, and she will never remember why.

7 comments:

Jono said...

I have yet to go to a HS reunion. Even with the 50th coming up in two years I doubt that I will make it back to Delaware for that one either. I always considered high school to be a bad experience in general. Thank goodness college was a different world.

Harry Hamid said...

I haven't gone to my high school reunions. Of course, for one of them, they claim they couldn't find me, even though my parents' address and phone number hasn't changed in many decades.

Turns out that since I wasn't on facebook at the time, their search ended there.

I wouldn't have gone anyway.

Some things are best forgotten.

anne marie in philly said...

I have never attended a high school or college reunion. too many bullies at both. FUCK THEM ALL!

Ol'Buzzard said...

If you want to view the true nature of man, just spend fifteen minutes watching recess at any middle school.
the Ol'Buzzard

Janie Junebug said...

My class's fortieth reunion was held a few months ago. I was not in attendance. I have never been in attendance. When I was in school I was not in attendance as often as possible and still graduated in the top ten percent of the class, which clearly demonstrates how stupid most of those people are. My class has a Facebook page that I visited a few times when it was first created (a member of my class still lives and breathes high school). A number of people claimed to remember me. I don't remember most of them. I remember a few people who were very nice. I remember the boy who slapped me and the people who called me "slut." I will never attend a reunion.

Love,
Janie

Bob said...

I think I remember every time i was bullied, but on the rare occasion I run into a former bully who has forgotten I quickly remind them as politely as I can that we were never friends or friendly.

Debra She Who Seeks said...

I went to a HS reunion once. ONCE. Now I avoid all HS and university reunions like the PLAGUE.