When I was about 6 yrs old
I would enjoy sitting in the playground with pencil and jot-book and draw stuff. Several kids found this weird since they preferred kicking drink cans about and fighting. I got in trouble for stabbing one of them with my very finely sharpened pencil when he picked on me. I prefer my own little world, don't invade it.
(quedge, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:59, Reply)

we called our one testicled arfur or mono
or orinoco: cos he was a womble
arfur: half a pair
or mono; as in mono testiclist

roger Alcock was known as no balls, cos he was alcock & noballs

I was called cunt cos that was accurate apparently...
(mickturate if i could be arsed i'd be bored, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:56, Reply)

Beta-Male Bucket
Well.. this is the secret santa think all over again.. Picking on the unfortunates. Nice to see someone drew attention to it.

Fuck this.. let's talk about the real point: bullying.
Well, due my brother having dodgy knees I earned the family nickname at school: "Bucket".

this lovely label was given to you in hnour of your birth: at the abortion clinic as you were thrown int the bucket withother unwanted life-forms... though in my case I apparently managed to crawl free and against all odds and wishes... I survived to become the non.sporting hero I was then.

Bucket... A Lovely name.

But.. being a meaty bloke: acanoeist and mountainbiker I actually could stand my ground happily. Others were less fortunate. Look after your own... Show backbone.

Ian. Ian was known by his peers as "Uno". They singled him out because at some point in his life, one testicle had failed to drop. The lad who antagonised him the most is in the army being shot at... Ian himself Runs a company, and is a very successful Cross Country runner. (and apparently gets all the ladies he wants)

Alex. Some chose to call Alex "Boing" because he had a perminent semi-hardon. Alex was broughtup with perfect plummy english, and with fencing as his chosen sport. NOT the best combo for a rugby school. His first retorts followed the line of "I find that comment to be offensive"... 2 yesr later noone mentioned it: he'd learnt to punch. :o)

There were always people who got bullied.. and it sucked. I stood up for them if i could though it drew more fire from the arses... but who cares.

Karma. Said it before will say it again. The underdogs rule nowadays... the bullys are stood still where they were years ago.

can we have a nice question next week? ... like up... Pride.

What have you done that REALLY makes you feel proud.. of yourself, or of others.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:48, Reply)

Like that mental
Not much of an anecdote, just a recounting of a horror. My kid has thsi crazy-haired best friend who is the weirdest creature this side of one of them David Attenborough programmes.

He's only six. Few weeks ago, he came round after my kid's constant bellyaching to have him round. So I pick up the kid and his best friend. Hie best friend's called Alec. His mum's quite posh and his dad's a banker, but Alec talks like he was born and raised by the king and queen of ASBO land.

Here's a few examples of the gems he comes out with.

Me: "Anyone want some squash?"
Devil child: "Haff ya go' ennyfink else?"
Me: "Squash or water."
Devil child: "I 'ate wa'er. Get me sumfink like a milkshake NOW!"

I asked my girlfriend if I could smash someone else's child's face off, but she tells me this is socially unnacceptable. Damn you, liberals. This kid's going to grow up to be a twunt.

First time I met him, at a birthday party, all the other kids were playing by the swings and Alec was on his own, in the corner, pacing up and down, mumbling to himself, looking like a cross between Ian Beale and that child prodigy mental who became a cross-dresser.
(evilpenguin Ur polar bears r wel gay, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:35, Reply)

Angus was his name...
I recall a strange lad in my secondary school that would regularly partake in all sorts of random activities. These are the 3 highlights:

- He would bounce a tennis ball from his home to school and home again daily (approximately 2 miles in distance each way)
- He once exposed himself in the girls locker room
- He once wrote his name in his own poop on the 1st floor boys toilets wall. Each letter about a metre high

Don't know what he does now - I'm guessing he's dead.
(Leenis is cool., Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:32, Reply)

Weird Kid's Revenge
As if being ginger and called Eric wasn't bad enough, he was a real stinker. Girls laughed at his spotty face and boys kicked him in the nuts just for laughs. I once saw a group of guys set fire to his bag.

Then one day he was pulled out of school. We had no idea why. Some said he had gone to a school for mentally retarded kids. The truth was that his dad had to work in China for six months and Eric was to go with his parents.

He was back at school soon enough and the bullying began again, although his complexion had cleared up and he had filled out a bit. He didn't get upset like he used to, but bore the torment with quiet patience. This didn't last long.

One night after school, a group of three guys circled him and started calling him names. He just stood quietly waiting for them to get bored. But they didn't, and then one of them threw a punch.

What they didn't know was that Eric hadn't wasted his time in China. Kung fu is more popular among young lads there than football, and he'd spent most evenings with other ex-pat kids learning how to kick the living shit out of punch bags.

The guy who'd thrown the first punch went down like a sack of shit, the result of Eric's heel in his forehead. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. This enraged the other two, who advanced at the same time.

Bully No.1 discovered what it feels like to have the edge of someone's hand hacked into his throat: less painful than a kick which allowed him to taste his own gonads before passing out in a red haze. Bully No.2 was lifted off his feet by a kick under his chin which sent his teeth off like an over-active popcorn machine.

And then Eric walked off home, leaving the three guys lying in the yard. When they reported him, the headteacher decided not to investigate further. Eric had always been such a quiet unassuming boy, clearly not capable of such violence.

The bullying stopped.
(frankspencer, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:24, Reply)

Emily Bruce Dickinson...
First of all I wasnt attacking you or your choice of entertainment. I was friends with the weird kids in my school
(see my David Bowman post) and did find them infinitely more cool than the reebok classic wearing west ham inbreds which popluated my school. I also wasnt suggesting that you give up the roll dicing game, just that perhaps employing some self preservation techniques would save/could have saved/whatever bloody tense on a lot of hardship at school. I played those games (my favourite was a he man one until I rolled a 2 and skeletor caught me flush outside castle greyskull) difference was, I played them at home and played football at playtime. As I said on the post you are referring to, individuality encouraged at home, repressed in public'.

And yes the dicebookgamers may well be successful in their lives, huzzah for them as well. But mentioning that 'these people engage in group sex on a regular basis' has nothing to do with nothing really. In fact if I'm brutally honest, it sounds like the weird kid trying to find the lie which will integrate themselves into the group.

Agreed on one thing though, Nike can eat shit. Until I have kids that is.
PS Splendid Oaf, cheers. Strangely enough I have an aquaintance called bungle who kinda fits that description. You're not anywhere from the North West are you?
(The_Greyhound wrote www.luckymcdanger.blog.co.uk on, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:21, Reply)

Further to all the bullying stuff….
Yes, I did stand up to bullies and I continue to do so – my current father-in-law is one…and I’m the only person who will tell him that and stand my ground.

Erm, yes…some people are scared of me.

At school we had the usual band of bullies; one girl in particular used to gather her cronies – all of whom were fairly innocuous alone but put together the weight of hairspray and orange foundation was overwhelming. They always hunted in a pack and picked upon the weakest in the class.

First of all it was mad Maria – I’ve mentioned her before, she had a really screwed up home life, she boarded and when she came home with me for a weekend she insisted on playing Monopoly until 4 in the morning. They hounded her and she moved classes.

Then they started on Clare – she was one of the most inoffensive people you could ever meet; quiet, friendly, gentle, but ginger. She didn’t last long either, moved classes too.

Next on the list was me. Being the resident bookworm I happened to have a large vocabulary, unfortunately a supply teacher decided to capitalise on this and spent an entire lesson asking for word definitions – being only 13 at the time I was too stupid to realise that answering the questions would make me a target – oh, and my natural tendency to show off didn’t help.

Soon drawings of me as the Walking Dictionary appeared on the blackboard, unpleasant remarks were made, my books disappeared, during prep I would have ink splashed on my work…All jolly good fun stuff. PE lessons always saw me picked last, the usual stuff….all intended to demoralise. The punches during French lessons were not pleasant, particularly as I refused to return them.

Eventually I spoke to my parents about all of this. They asked me how I wanted it dealt with – by them or by tackling myself. I decided to make an appointment with the headteacher, Sr. Mary – yes I was also irritatingly mature, another reason for their dislike of me, and despite being only 13 I could pass easily as 18 – the bullies couldn’t.

So I ratted on the bullies, named names and pointed out that it had been the reason for Maria and Clare’s departure, and that I for one was no longer willing to stand for it…when I think now just how obnoxious I must have been…..Well, it did the trick – the school looked into it and the ringleader was politely asked to leave.

All the bullying stopped.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:11, Reply)

Peer Pressure...
.
It's a funny old world. 15 pages of this QOTW week where B3tans gleefully recount their stories of torture and bullying and then a few of us post questioning this and the whole tone of this weeks board changes.

If some of these posts sickened you, why didn't you speak up before? Then again, why didn't I speak sooner?

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 11:02, Reply)

..
i wore a suit with a silk hankerchief to school, they hated me because i made them look ridiculous..
(lefty212, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:59, Reply)

I was the weird kid

and look at me now! I'm a Level 60 Mage!

*hangs self*
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:49, Reply)

Bullies
I was considered the weird kid at school, although I was never bullied I did take several kickings for defending some of the smaller/different kids.

I'm still considered strange after these many years - and I still stand up for the picked upon.

Difference between then and now is I'm built like a brick outhouse...
(flibbley lame balloon man far and wee, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:40, Reply)

Be careful who you wind up
We had our fair share of weird kids in our year. Being ginger, I took a bit of flack, but I also gave out my fair share. This chap was in our school year: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/5119354.stm I don't know if he went nuts because of the way he was treated or if he was treated that way because he was nuts already.

Next time be nice to the weird kid. Buy them a mars bar invite them to join you at lunch. We should all be looking out for each other.

No apologies for the lack humour.
(spunkyD, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:40, Reply)

Quick heart opener from me
I was one of the quiet swotting ones in me ol' all-males comp school, and thus treated like an oddbob for the first 4 years and bullied constantly. Almost got to the point where suicide was a sensible decision; the depression was terrible. Near the end of that 4th year I met up with a few mates after school and it became a regular thing; I actually learnt some well-needed confidence, which helped me to deal with the last year immensely.

So...last day of school turns up just before our main exams, and 5 of the bullies corner me outside a classroom.
"Awww, are you going to miss us Jeccy?"
"Yes, I rather like the smell of cunt now, such a shame to miss it" was my polite answer as I walked past them; they didn't have a fucking clue how to retort to that one. The majority of bullies tend to just go for weakness and have no real way of being able to mentally retort, hence turning to physically bullying to deal with the lack of thought.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:38, Reply)

any fellow aussies on this site remember these?
- trax sneakers
- kt-26 sneakers
- tropix clothes

oh how far more enjoyable school would've been had those brands never existed
(Handel blah blah blah, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:36, Reply)

Karma will find everyone
no need to justify your actions, it will catch up with everyone as necessary.

Kids are cruel, but if we all learn from it and try and pass on that knowledge we can make a difference. We would all do things differently with hindsight. I wish some people would have helped me on occasion, but now i try and help others as it helps me to think that i can reduce their shite a little bit. I probably wouldn't understand unless i had been on the wrong side of a load of activities myself.

Our weird kid was also ginger, had a spitting speach impedement and was of average intelligence.

He did not have the co-ordination to scissor jump a 60cm highjump. I think that was the clinical gingerness he suffered from. He rolled a shot put down his back as it was way to heavy for him. He hit his head with a javelin as he tried to flick it like throwing a tennis ball forgetting if you turn it 90 degrees as you throw your head is in the way.

He raced his dog across the park every morning and when he won, he did a linford christie fist pump down on one knee.

What he was good at was a question of sport. Uber Genius. just didn't get anything wrong. Golf. Boxing. Table tennis. Rugby. Which for an 11 year old was very weird. Where did he find this out - it was before the internet? Especially when all we understood was lego and that some girls had bra's.

Still puzzles me today
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:25, Reply)

Trainers, the bane of my young life (among others)
I was bought Hi-Tech 'Silver Shadows' as a teenager - I didnt stand a chance.

Legless and Co. - I wish you had been at my school to help me stand up for myself. I am almost 30, but I have never and will never attend any school reunions as it will just be a chance for people to have one last go at me.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 10:15, Reply)

Here comes...
There was a lad we knew in school called Jonathan (This being my first post I believe the words "for that was his name" should follow) who confided in us that he would stand over a mirror when thwacking one out since his chocolate starfish looked (in his words) like a ladies parts. This was at a time when the Human League were riding high with a particular song and to this day we hum "Here comes the mirror man" when he enters the room.

It's so cold at the moment it's all girth and no length.
(Tammytastic, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:52, Reply)

Re: Splendid Oaf
Oooo, ooo, must have suppressed my trainer memories until I read that - my 'loving' parents provided me with a succession of crap trainers, involving the aforementioned Kingfisher (think that was Woolies, right?), Gola, Hi-Tec and so on, but the real low point was the 'Noke' ones from the market. I used to beg them to at least buy ones with no branding after that.

A few years earlier, Mum had presented me with a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Tartles" T-Shirt.

I never stood a chance.
(Aljrob, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:46, Reply)

BeardyMat
QUOTE: "I'm no bully or out but, along with most of the year, we often took to piling on him, in turn, punching the hell out of his chubby little arms."

Have you looked at a definition of 'bullying' in a dictionary? Or at a dictionary?
(frankspencer, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:33, Reply)

Bungle
Just remembered about 'Bungle'. Big ginger fucker, spit of TVs big brown bear, Bungle... he wasn't that weird, just a bit of a boff... but someone found a 5ft purple polystyrene cock in his attic. THAT was weird...

Oh and Greyhound: "...but if I had a kid of school age? Air max all the way. Lesser of two evils in my head, I'd rather have a 12 year old girl working 14 hours a day in Indonesia than a son carving 'I hate life' into their arm while complaining that only my chemical romance understands them."

Fucking right on mate. I got fucking ripped at highschool for having shit trainers. Kingfishers I think they were. *shudders*

EBD: They ALL have group sex? CHINNY RECKON. Unless of course it's with each other...
(The Splendid Oaf, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:32, Reply)

we've never received any complaints.

I briefly worked for the Department of Health, doing a couple of phone surveys.

One of the surveys they ended up not doing.

The reason for this was that they realised that certain of the questions could lead people to give answers which indicated that there might be abuse going on in the family.

So they had to take some time to work out how best to pass this information on to the relevant agencies, right?

Oh no - because they didn't want to be liable, they had to re-write the survey so as to rule out the possibility of hearing any evidence of abuse. If they didn't hear any evidence, they couldn't be legally liable for not having done enough.

I suspect the person who made that decision also wrote the school system's bullying policy, and later went on to distinguish themselves advising the church on how to deal with abuse.

This is in case anyone thinks I'm being paranoid by asserting that schools aren't interested in stopping bullying. 'Anti-bullying policies' are actually 'anti-legal liability policies'.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:28, Reply)

I'll roll all the dice I want to, thanks
To The Greyhound - why should anyone have to give up a fairly inoffensive hobby just because shitbags have so much time on their hands that they can rub shit in someone's hair for it? The most conformist kid at school can be targeted for bullying if someone popular feels like targeting them. You may as well be an individual - at least when you get the shit kicked out of you, you can feel vindicated that you might actually be able to get a job one day.

All the roll-a-dice nerds I know are successful IT workers, scientists, boffins... and polyamourous. These people engage in group sex on a regular basis. Nike? Eat shit.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 9:13, Reply)

Stop Bullying?...
I was bullied at school, on and off for a period of 6 years, and it was largely inevitable.

The parents of these children simply didnt care when told of their actions. They responded with indifference, disinterest in the living hell their dear little offspring were creating for me. Or with incredulity that they couldn't possibly be doing this thing.

If you want to stop bullying at source, best stop it at the parent level.

I teach my kids to stick up for themselves, but not to pick on people. I encourage them to go against the flow and stand up for the little guys, the weirdoes and the misfits. One day a lot of them will fit and wont be weird.

I just hope that my kids listen and dont pick unecessarily on others, rest assured if I found out that they were, I would make sure they stopped it.
(LunarJim, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 8:53, Reply)

I remember
the kid with ADD in my primary school who did all sorts of strange things like gyrate against the eating area tree like it was nothing strange or bounce and jiggle about when sitting on the classroom floor. He would always sit right at the teacher's feet while the rest of us sat away at a distance, making a perfect semi circle around him. We caught him picking his nose at 12 years old a few times. I was right royal nasty to him and now I feel bad because in High School he's always pleasantly say hi when we passed each other. He's quite nice bloke now.

Also, one day a big shit was discovered on the floor of the year 5 - 7's boys toilets. We all hooted and giggled hysterically as the principal herself picked the poop up with a baggie over her hand. Obviously the cleaners didn't consider their pay high enough to undertake such a deed but it didn't stop them from standing around and watching.

We never discovered who the culprit was.
(Dust Bunny your little friend under the fridge, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 8:46, Reply)

bullying is inevitable?
QUOTE: Sadly this is true. Bullying in schools and singling someone out is awful but inevitable.


Well yes, on the one hand we have trained adults backed up by a government department, on the other we have a group of small children. Obviously a complete mismatch, no wonder it's so difficult to stop bullying.

Fuck that - 'they' don't put resources into stopping it, because 'they' don't want to.

As an anarchist, I am the weird kid in the lower-middle class.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 7:42, Reply)

i liek this.
theres this kid in class named Cody. He sits around the room, while wearing a shirt from site named "b3ta".
hes a freak.
(NC-17 loves his b3ta shirt, sent by Moohalaa, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 3:15, Reply)

Crazy Guy
O.K. Nihilist_Alchemist, I give up. Forgive me for being slow but I live in Oz. What the crazy guy story point?
(out of his league, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 2:28, Reply)

My class was full of fuckups..
The first one of them was a kid called Duncan. Duncan never spoke to anybody. He didn't have any friends or acquaintances. Duncan did however have his tennis ball. Through many years of wear and tear, his tennis ball had lost is coating of fine green fuzz, but Duncan loved it anyway. Duncan spent every minute of his playtime in the same spot in the playground every day. He would throw his beloved tennis ball at the same spot over and over. It would bounce on the floor, then the same spot on the wall, and would land comfortably back in Duncan's hands. Duncan would then giggle wildly. It was not a normal giggle. It was actually quite chilling to hear. He would repeat this over and over and over as much as he could. Duncan never tired of this activity, and if my memory serves me correctly he unfailingly pursued this activity every playtime/lunchtime for the four years he attended my school. If anyone approached Duncan in his secluded little corner and acted as if they wanted to take his tennis ball, Duncan would react swiftly and violently. Nobody ever got Duncan's ball away from him, though many tried.

The second I shall tell you about was Treeby. His real name was Michael, but for some reason everyone called him Treeby. His parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, which exempt him from assembly and RE. Treeby had a face that appeared to be on the verge of crying all the time, but we never actually saw him cry. He did once punch me when I told him the joke; "Knock knock. Who's there? YOUR PARENTS!!"

Now we progress to high school. At high school there was a kid called Brandon. Brandon was one of those funny looking kids that seemed to match the typical "nerd" caricature to a tee. Brandon made himself famous by one day deciding to steal his dad's company car to drive down to London to visit his 30 year old girlfriend. Brandon was 13 at the time. He got an impressive total of 3 miles before crashing into a petrol pump.

Last but by no means least is Simon Spooner. As if the name isn't enough, right? Spooner was a true fuckup of a grand magnitude. His accolades included:
- Having a cyclops dad who refused to wear an eye patch. We were nice enough to call his dad Rell. If you've seen the film Krull, you'll understand. Rell seemed to have an excuse to visit the school every week, walking around with a gaping hole in his face, scaring all the kids.
- Having a plain black dog called "Spot." Figure that one out.
- Carrying a folder with a polaroid picture of his rabbit tucked into the sleeve. On the polaroid he had scrawled the words "my rabbit somky." The rabbit's name was Smoky.
- Never realising he was the butt of every joke. One time someone yelled to him "Hey Spooner, your aunty Reenie's at the window." He promptly responded with an loud, screechy wail "She can't be! My aunt Reenie's in Slough!" As if that wasn't amusing enough, the original kid didn't even know Spooner had an aunt Reenie. He was just yelling it as an ongoing injoke he had with his friends. Furthermore, the class in which this happened was on the third floor.
- Managing to be in the remedial group for every single lesson he had throughout his entire high school career. He was the only person in the school to ever achieve this.
- Completely losing his composure one time and getting suspended for three weeks over a simple joke. One time he walked into class late and the teacher asked "Where have you been?" A friend of mine piped in and said "He went for a wafty crank, Miss." Spooner went fucking mental. First, he screeched like a banshee and tears erupted from his eyes. Then he threw his Somky folder across the class and started punching he door. When the teacher went over to calm him down, he punched her in the face and pushed her onto her arse. Then he stormed out of the room.
( MarkyH feels like the H in Bob Hoskins' name, Thu 25 Jan 2007, 0:36, Reply)