Life in the weird lane, part I (or why the bullies hated me so)

The other day I was listening to CBC and they were talking to someone from Big Brothers and Big Sisters Canada about a survey they had done looking at what parents are most worried about.  As always, one of the top concerns was bullying.  We've been hearing a lot about bullying over the last several years.  A few years ago when "Mean Girls" came out it got everyone talking about how girls bully differently, humiliating each other by using popularity as the bait in a nasty game of shame.

This kind of emotional bullying is cruel, hurtful and malicious.  It also only works if you give a shit about fitting in.  Me, I didn't give a rats ass about popularity or fitting in.  I thought popular kids were conformist and often assholes.  I was weird from day one and my Mom always encouraged me to be "an individual" so I had no pressure to fit in on the home front.  Even before I got into middle school and started experimenting with my unique sense of style, I and all the kids in my class knew that I was weird.  In elementary school this meant I was a social pariah. 

I remember when my 'best friend' became popular in grade 5 and told me that she could only talk to me behind the shed because she couldn't be seen with me.  That year I read "Blubber" by Judy Blume.  If you haven't read it it's all about the sympathetic, exceedingly normal girl who has to do a project with the fat outcast (not, by the way, a very sympathetic character.  I wanted to like Blubber but she was kind of an irritating and dull character).  We get to explore the cruelty of bullying without actually identifying with the bullied kid or frankly, even liking her.  It's nice and safe and totally targeted at bystanders rather than kids who actually experience bullying and teasing at school.

I was an avid reader and watcher of the tube so I had an acute sense of types and archetypes.  It wasn't until I read "Blubber" that I realized that I was 'that kid.'  I'd never thought about where I fit into the social hierarchy but when I read that book it clicked, I was the kid that everyone makes fun of, that was my place in the social landscape.  I'm kind of vague on how bad it was and I'm pretty sure it was more isolation than straight up bullying but I do think it was bad enough to get me crying in bed fairly regularly.  All I can say is, I pined for a group of friends like The Babysitter's Club or the girls on the Facts of Life to stick by me through thick and thin but that was definitely not in the cards for me.

It wasn't until my family moved and I started high school that things turned from the pain of social isolation and general teasing to the world of sexual harassment and threats of violence.  It wasn't just that I was weird looking with my shorts and tights and peace sign and (God forbid) un-permed, un-teased hair. Or that I listened to weird music like the Violent Femmes and the Dead Milkmen. I also didn't fit in to any of the social strata.  On the one hand I didn't drink, I didn't smoke or do any drugs and I didn't put out (despite what so many liked to say) so I couldn't gain acceptance by partying hard.  On the other hand I swore like a trucker, wore tight clothes and didn't believe in God so the bible thumpers wouldn't have me.  To top it all off I was loud and outgoing and refused to just quietly sit at my locker and keep to myself.  Nobody knew what the fuck to make of me.

I usually managed to have some friends but I also lost friends on a regular basis.  One person didn't want me bringing down his popularity quotient so he unceremoniously ditched me.  Another said her parent's thought I was a bad influence (she's thirteen with a 20 year old boyfriend who's regularly drunk but I'm the bad influence).  And others just found other people that they could better relate to.  There were a few people who stuck by me right through and for that I will always be grateful but through all of this the one thing that was never an option was fitting in.  No matter what they did I knew that I would never change for them.  I'd rather be alone and respect myself than fit in and lose myself.  I think a lot of people would say, why not just make it easy on yourself and stop dressing so weird?  But for me there would have been nothing easy about that.  I only know how to be one person and to try to be someone else, for the sake of fitting in no less, would have been the worst kind of betrayal.

Even then I knew this one all important fact: So long as you stay true to yourself and your values, they will never win.

So let me finish with my favourite Molly Ringwald quote. In Pretty in Pink when she decides to go to the dance alone in her self-made dress, "I just want to let them know that they didn't break me."

Stay tuned for Part II