Having been bullied as a child, I have little tolerance for people who lack filters. You know the ones I am talking about: the people who make snide little remarks about other people and then try to disguise it with cute little phrases like.."LOL" "JK" or my personal favorite, "No Offense."
Why do people do that?? I cringe when I hear the words, "No offense" because I know what's going to happen....I am about to be seriously offended. "No offense but....when you wear your hair that way it makes your nose look really big...I'm just sayin'" ("I'm just sayin'" is apparently code for "I want you to think I'm trying to help, but I really just want you to feel ugly and inferior) "When you wear your make-up like that, you really can't tell your one eye is bigger than the other...LOL" "LOL"= I want you to think I'm joking, but really I am trying to point out your flaws so nobody else will comment on how pretty you look.)
We all know someone like this, someone who just can't help themselves. I have have dealt with many of them in my life and I only lost my cool once. NO, I didn't hit her...I wanted to, I even have a plan to in one of my next books, but I didn't. I just smiled. I smiled and started to talk. (This is where I almost lost her, because she was pretty, but not the sharpest tool in the shed...I had to speak slowly and clearly so she could fully absorb what I was saying.) "You look really beautiful tonight, but if I may make a suggestion...perhaps you should re-evaluate the whole thinking and talking thing...no offense, but the next time you have a thought...let it go. I'm just sayin', when you open your mouth, the ugliness inside starts to show through and the whole pretty package that you've cultivated so carefully is just wasted, and we don't want that, do we? No we don't. So, next time you think it will be funny to say something nasty think twice. Shut your mouth and smile pretty, and leave the thinking and talking to those of us who can actually handle it."
She stood there for a minute, and I was pretty sure she missed most of it, then she said the only thing she could think of.
"Whatever."
Win.
I totally agree. I had this bully at school. She was a girl with a chip on a shoulder who used to strut around glaring at people and even if you were just casually looking over she would start on you. She was all violence. She never attempted to start on me until the fourth year (kind of like a junior year of High School). I had been a meek child but by that year I was quite bolshy after splitting up with a boy earlier that month. She started teasing me about it so I answered her back and she said she would "have me after school". Think she was surprised when I turned around and teased her about her own faults. Needless to say, she never hassled me again.
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but that was a great post. Er ... just sayin'. I was bullied a lot when I was younger. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I had glasses, was a year younger than my classmates and hence usually the smallest? Whatever. We also moved a lot so there was the "new kid" in school. But the saying in the adds is true, it does get better. A kid should have to wait for something that never should have happened to stop though. I'm happy you took on the topic and did so with in such a masterful way.
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