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I have brought this up before, but I am going in a different direciton with it this time. But to recap my other blog on bullying real quick (I didn't take a look so I am going by memory), I feel that I didn't properly defend myself the occasional time I really got picked on. I had an actual bully once back in elementary school where things went a bit too far a couple of times. I will occasionally look up "bully beatdown" videos to vindicate my feelings on that sometimes, it's okay to "lower yourself to their level" and fight back. Unfortunately, that's the only way some people learn. However, I can't think on this subject too much or if I watch too much of those videos, I find myself way into it and ultimately upset myself.

While this is in no way a sudden realization, I don't think I ever seriously mentioned that I eventually became a bully to another kid.

Alright, so my bully I had happened around 4th grade or so. He was one of the few people who lived in walking distance that went to my school so we were actually friends beforehand. Eventually playful teasing became straight up bullying, so that's when we stopped being friends. He did stupid stuff like tried to obviously steal peoples possessions, so he was also a "bad kid" or whatever. I looked up up on Facebook a couple of years back (he was a friend of another friend I reconnected with at a party so his profile was easy to find). I hate to judge on looks along, but judging by him trying to look as tough as possible in his profile picture, I imagine the dude hasn't changed much in his adult life.

Anyway, a quick recap of the worst incidents between him.

*Half puddle of ice and water during winter one morning recess. Threw me in and possibly tried to drown me (held head in water where my nose and mouth were submerged). Whole school watched and found this very amusing.

*Me and a friend (did not go to my school) in my neighborhood were riding bikes. He was too. Once he spotted me he chased me for literal miles before he caught up to me and wanted to beat me up. I think he said he was going to kill me. We haven't spoken for interacted for over a year at that point. Other friend was encouraging me to stop and confront him, but I scurried away believing his threat to be literal. He almost accomplished his goal because I could have been hit my a car when crossing the street to my house.

*Then just general day to day stuff that included lots of physical abuse for no real reason.

If I ever spotted this guy today I am not sure what I would do. If I was wrong about him based on my assumptions on his Facebook and he asked for forgiveness (plenty of those stories supposedly happen from what I have read). I am not sure I might, even if the guy never intended to do any harm past a punch or two. I am not religious, and I don't believe in forgiving people just because. I think that causes people like him to take advantage of others. Look what happened to me when I CLEARLY tried to avoid conflict with him. I don't want to hear any excuses about us being kids. He knew what he was doing.

On the flipside...

Fast forward to 6th grade. I was still in elementary school (the district I was in was weird and had it go up to sixth as the one and only Jr. High level class...I don't know, either). A new kid came after the first week of classes in a small school of students that literally knew each other for 7-8 years at that point. On his first day he did nothing but talk trash to people and try to establish dominance. It went as well for him as you'd expect.

No one liked this guy. And he couldn't hold his own in a fight. Before I knew it, I found myself getting in fights with him nearly every day. Sometimes for no reason. The difference this time is that I won these fights. Quite easily. I suspect he let me and other classmates beat him up on purpose to gain sympathy. He would dramatically lie in the field after a fight sometimes when all that would happen is someone would slightly push him (it literally looked like a WWE wrestler on his first day). Also, because there was a time when we seriously fought. It was like the Chicken fight from Family Guy. It was very brutal and he didn't go down. Neither did I. We would have probably fought for hours if the teachers didn't intervene.

The point is, no matter what his motivations were or if he was throwing fights for odd reasons is that I became a bully. While other classmates did pick on him, I know for a fact that I was the worst for him. Instead of learning from myself being bullied and showing some sympathy for this kid, I became his worst enemy. The sad part is that I almost did the same thing before this kid came into the picture. Long story short there was another student I started to pick on, but ended up turning things around, manning up, and becoming friends with him. So you would think I would have learned my lesson.

I wouldn't be surprised if the kid I actually bullied hardcore looked up my Facebook as well. Probably felt vindicated that I turned into some sort of fat loser that games too much and makes lame jokes or whatever. Turning things around from earlier, if this guy spotted me or contacted me with some sort of bad attitude, I would probably take it, and completely understand why the guy still disliked me.

I remember when I was in High School, there was this awkward moments were I discovered he went to the same school district as me (I switched districts by then). He didn't have the same class as me, but he talked to the teacher about something. Anyway, he saw me sitting down and looked me for a minute. He looked unsure if it was me, and no words were exchanged. He then casually left and I never saw him again. Another student that happened to go to my school confirmed to me that it was him, so I know I wasn't mistaken. At the time she said that he was still being a jerk to everyone and starting fights he couldn't hope to finish, but they weren't physical anymore. At the time I felt vindicated on my decision to mess with the guy as a kid, but I now obviously feel very different.

As strongly as I feel about myself being picked on and bullying in general, it took far too long to realize that I was a hypocrite in the end, and basically a horrible person. Maybe in a roundabout way I deserved to get messed with. As inferred earlier, I hate the lame excuse, "Oh, you were just kids." Again, we weren't stupid. As I said with my bully, but now it's on me: I knew what I was doing.

*at work with no time to proof read so sorry for any typoz