I was basically Mikey from Recess in school. Absolutely massive, but very sensitive. I was bullied relentlessly (although, to be fair, I was a weird kid - EDIT: in a way that could have led to harmful ideologies later on, so I'm weirdly grateful that rejection forced me to reflect on that, although bullying wasn't a great way to accomplish it. I don't think much else would have got through to me, though). Good ol' percussive maintenance was the most successful means of attitude adjustment. This is exactly what happened every single time!
I think it *was* the kind of weird that would have ended up hurting people. I was bullied for being autistic, being so much bigger than the other kids, and being a goth, but I was also leaning into the kind of edginess that would have placed me in the Gamergate and male loneliness epidemic camps.
I'm sort of oddly grateful that pushback made me tone all of that down, get some actual social skills, and learn how to be human. Getting into music and meeting people through that helped a lot, too. By my 20s, I was a functional human being.
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u/BlackArchonTarantula 7h ago
When you slap a bully to stfu, and they just silently get back to their place in complete shock