About a third of the way through Eighth Grade, a fellow honor student and I began dating. Somehow, by the end of the school year, together we had swerved abruptly from the geek track to Being Popular. I was thirteen. I felt pretty damn special.
But then two weeks into summer vacation I contracted mononucleosis. My doctor prescribed a month -- at least – of rest, and “no contact sports.” Meanwhile my boyfriend developed an interest in an older girl whom he’d met at soccer camp. By August the swelling in my glands had finally subsided, but I’d also been dumped. At least by then we had cable and I could watch the entirety of Live Aid on MTv.
Then I started high school. In an attempt to uphold the ultra cool social standing I’d attained at the end of junior high, I tailored my freshman academic schedule carefully, cutting out anything that could be perceived as dorky. Band? Forget it. Honors English? Why bother? But I did sign up for Home Ec. I’m not sure how that figured into the equation.
I also adjusted my wardrobe, with an eye toward the edgy. Lacking an independent sense of fashion, I modeled my outfits after those of the girls whom I perceived to be the pinnacle of cool . . . plus a hefty dose of Molly Ringwald in Pretty In Pink. My goal, more than anything else, was to appear different. I wore flea market jewelry and crafted earrings out of paper clips and miniature plastic cans of fruit cocktail. I wore my hair long on one side but short and spiky on the other. I thought it worked. But maybe not.
The bid for extended popularity definitely did not work. While my ex-boyfriend had maintained his new social status, I had not. I found myself back on the low end of the totem pole. Since I'd changed my academic schedule, I didn't see my classmates from the previous year as much, and I didn't know many of the people who were in my classes. Over time, I made some new friends -- many of whom I'm still close with today. But it was a lonely year.
Almost immediately, my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend and two of her friends began tormenting me in the manner in which many teenage girls seem to excel. They never hit me, or threatened me, or called me stupid. They just gave me dirty looks and made fun of my clothes, my hair, my make-up. Every day. They made a habit of walking by my locker in the morning before classes began, making it clear what they thought of me. I pretended it didn’t bother me, but of course it did.
I can’t remember how long this persisted – perhaps the entire year – but eventually that girlfriend got dumped too and the bullying stopped. After that, for the remaining two years that we were in school together, the girls and I just avoided making eye contact with each other.
It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, yet even today, when I see any of those girls, I feel thirteen, dorky, and small. As is the case in a small town like Marshfield, I still encounter each of them with some regularity – one at the gym, one at the playground, one at the grocery store. Nothing ever happens – I smile, act nonchalant, remember that I am now three times older than I was back then. And most of the time, they don’t even acknowledge me. I feel a bit defensive, thinking, “you can’t mess with me like that anymore” – but there’s also a kernel of fear, “so please just don’t, okay?” Old wounds don’t heal very easily.
Okay, okay, poor me, right? But here’s the ugly side of the story. I was a bully too. I want to believe it was that same year, I want to classify it as a reaction to the way I’d been treated -- but it wasn’t. It happened the previous year, when I was flying high in the popular crowd. I had no accomplices, and for no apparent reason, I singled out a couple younger girls and acted like I hated them. Gave them dirty looks, made fun of their clothes and hair and so on. Admitting this, I feel so ashamed. (J. and E., I am so sorry!)
So what’s the point of all this? As adults, as parents, as now-recovered teenagers, it’s our job to explain to our kids why bullying sucks. How the things we do to make ourselves feel cool and special and better than the others are only okay if they don’t intentionally hurt someone else. How the things we do, alone or with help from friends, to make others feel small are not only unacceptable, but dangerous; potentially lethal. Think Tyler Clementi, Phoebe Prince.
We don’t get on the school bus with our kids, we don’t walk the corridors with them. We don’t go around monitoring their every conversation. No matter how hard we listen, there’s so much we won’t hear or see. So we have to start them young, to teach empathy and compassion as soon as they can understand the concepts. And hope (and pray) that -- sooner rather than later -- they get it.
