Ask Lemmy

Should bullying at school be pro-actively approached and make victims and bullies talk to each other under professional supervision ?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Let kids fight. You're NOT going to prevent bullying in school at that age. You're just not. At that age, the bullies think they can get away with anything.....except now they're right. The schools will punish the victim just as much as the bully if an incident is brought to their attention. So now victims aren't bringing their bullying to anyones attention.

But when I was in school, it was different. I got bullied for the first 2 weeks of school. Then I punched him in the mouth. Knocked out 2 of his teeth, cut my own hand, and that was that. He nor anyone else bullied me the rest of 6th grade.

And I moved schools, and had to do the same thing in 7th grade.

And 9th grade.

And 10th grade.

You get the idea. Anytime I was in a new school, kids thought they could just bully me. And I said no. With my fist.

No bullets fired. No tragedy. Just a string of kids with broken noses or knocked out teeth.

Schools these days have let the issue get so out of hand, that now kids gang up in groups of 30, and it's all "your crew vs my crew" while a bunch of kids not in the fight record on cell phones. Then someone pulls a knife, or a gun, and everybody scatters. Then the news shows up to cover a story about dead kids.

And so you look back at the first school shooting, columbine, and realize that these "bullies" are like the preppiest douches ever. If the columbine kids had just grew some balls, and threw a punch, it would be impossible to say where the butterfly effect would take us today. But it would be different, and I'd like to think better.

I can't definitively say what the bullying was in Columbine. But those pussy kids don't seem like fighters to me. They look like the type who shop at the gap, and "do brunch". Their bullying was probably all words. One punch, boom, done.

I can never remember a single public shooting in the 90s. The closest thing would be the unibomber, and the oklahoma city bombing. But nothing like today. I guess I have to commend MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and any other big sports arenas in America. You never hear of shootings in a sports venue where it would do the most damage. 70,000 around a football field could probably kill 300 people in seconds.

But none of this existed until columbine. And no, I'm not counting the JFK assisination, or the Lincoln assasination. Those weren't public shootings. Those were political shootings that happened in public. At no time was the general public the target.

Now we have to have mental health support that doesn't exist. Look at these shooters. Always male. Men (and even boys) don't have a place to vent. It's a common to not even have friends you feel close to in that way. Wifes will ask their husbands what the boys talked about. And there won't really be answers, because we don't talk about deep things. We talk about who's starting in the game. What meat venders are new to the area. How many marbles can Todd fit in his mouth? Wait, no, how many marbles CAN Todd fit in his mouth??? No way it's 100. I say 50 max.....200??? You're crazy!!! Ok, I got $10 on this. TODD!!! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE......AND BRING MARBLES!!!! WHAT? NO! NOT FOR YOUR BUTTHOLE!!! Has Todd been putting marbles in his butthole? Why would that be the first thing he thinks? Heeey, Todd, how many of those marbles can you fit in your mouth??? BECAUSE I GOT $10 RIDING ON THIS, THATS WHY!!! DON'T FUCK ME OVER TODD!"

Tangent aside, you'll notice nothing of significance was discussed. Not even though Todd is going through a nasty divorce. It's not that guys don't care.....we just have no way to talk about it. Societal norms are that guys don't talk about that stuff. You'd lose your friends if you tried. Women will think less of you as a man if they saw a guy cry. Not all women, but a higher number than you'd think.

Some guys don't even like sports that much, but its a safe topic that won't get emotional in a real way. It's the safe option.

The problem is, men ARE just as emotional as women. But we gotta push it down into the deepest darkness we can, and never speak of it again. Until one day, we just lose all control, fly off the handle, and mentally break. Thats when bullets start flying, and bodies start mounting. And the final straw could be over some trivial shit too. Maybe Target was out of that queso cheese you like for the 3rd time. And now you're remembering eating nachos as a kid before your dad walked out on you as an 8 year old. But you can't cry. People will look down on you. Gotta hold it together for everybody else.....but fuck everybody else! Nobody cares about me, why do I care about them?

And then BAM BAM BAM just like that years of repressed emotions come flying out in violent ways. In uncontrollable ways. In ways that were never planned. It just happens, because there is no other outcome.

And it all leads back to schools. If that guy hadn't been bullied for 12 years, he'd have less to repress. Because emotional scarring never goes away. The things that hurt you at a young age, will hurt you if you make it elderly age. Why did Becky turn you down for valentines day in 1st grade, and say you had a stupid face? Again, trivial on it's own, but it leads to a bigger picture. And all because society is too scared to let a 14 year old punch another 14 year old. This modern world is the outcome.