The Villainy and Victimhood of a Teenage Bully





Personally, I never faced serious bullying. It’s one of the many ways my upbringing was privileged — right up there with enough food and parents who gave a shit. Jokes about my last name aside, I endured an occasional peppering of light harassment. In adolescence, a few high schoolers lobbed a strawberry milkshake out of a car window as I trudged home from the bus stop. They missed, but to be fair — it was a tough throw. On another occasion, a senior placed a tomato slice atop my freshman head as I sat with my friends in the cafeteria. We thought it was kind of funny, though, so I’m not sure I should count that one.And… that’s pretty much it. I know — it’s a wonder I survived. You may be asking, why were these malevolent upper-classmen so eager to deposit foodstuffs onto my cherubically cheeked, post-pubescent person? Your guess is as good as mine.While rarely the target of bullying, I nevertheless witnessed it with stunning regularity. At school, it happened in classrooms, in hallways, on playgrounds and in the bathroom. It happened at baseball fields, basketball courts, arcades (remember those?) and Taco Bell lobbies. From the moment I stepped a hesitant foot into an elementary school at age five to the moment I stepped that same, much larger and more hormonal foot onto a graduation stage twelve years later, I observed an unthinkable volume of the stuff.