bullies It always feels weird to describe things this way, but I grew up getting bullied. The kind of bullying I was scared of—brawny kids with backwards caps and unkempt budding facial hair cornering you for your lunch money—didn’t materialize. Instead I was accustomed to friendships that ran the spectrum from “friendships” which were convenient labels for easy access stress relief in the form of at my expense jokes to friend that I had a lot of fun with with the unfortunate compromise of dealing with a more minor flavor of the former. It’s funny that I didn’t encounter the more traditional kind of bully until I became an adult.
I have a hard time with conflict. I’m apologetic by nature. I had to train myself to stop saying sorry out of habit when someone else was apologizing to me. Sorry for making you feel that way. There’s some sense that I owed them for forcing them to reckon with their own feelings. Perhaps it’s because I know how hard it is to reckon with my own feelings of being invalidated, ignored, or abused. I like feeling independent, like I can take care of everything myself. I struggle to depend on others and at the same time, idolize interdependent communal movements like mutual aid. I question deserving, yet always hold the highest standards for others.
I thought encountering askers was hard enough, but I find that I have no idea how to act when I run into bullies. The kind that uses their power to coerce you into fulfilling their wants. Rather than pushing you against a locker like I was imagining, they trust in emotional manipulation, seeding shame and guilt and doubt for whether you really deserve anything at all. They know how to wield their emotions to achieve their wants. They do not care how those wants affect you. You are simply an obstacle in their eyes. A means to an end. They will use you and leave you broken. They will not care—let alone see—how much effort you put in. You may feel an obligation to put in more effort in hopes that they let you off the hook. You might find yourself believing everything they say immediately, adapting your view of the world to the one through their rose-colored glasses. You are compromising, reasonable, a nice person. You are the perfect host for them.
You have to realize that they are parasites. They feed off the conflict. They want you to get incensed, to feel bad, to shake with anxiety. They will go off to “save the world” while they love blowing up people’s lives for the sake of pleasure. They will work in climate and not know how to separate recycling. They will work for a food nonprofit and let their leftovers grow moldy in the fridge. They will buy a social media company for equal speech and rig the system for their own exposure.
I’m wondering how many people the average person feels animosity towards. I have a very short list in a file called “people I would like to hex.” If I had to characterize what I feel towards them, I suppose I would characterize it as I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies. Doing things out of spite is not kosher, but oh does it feel so good. Being grateful for your accomplishments and how far you’ve come is nice and all, but nothing compares to relishing the picture of your enemies simmering over your newfound success. Of course, I don’t wish them mortal pain or crippling unhappiness. No, because that is all too easy. They deserve the hairsplitting inconveniences caked in the cracks of their everyday routines. I hope they develop a sensitive taste for coffee and the daily coffee they get starts to taste bitter and bland. I pray that mud flecks onto their pristine white sneakers every time they take them out. I implore the algorithm to send them the most bingeable shows with the most unsatisfying endings. I hope the water they drink forever tastes too cold or too hot—the food too salty or too bland. I hope they have enough hubris to eat the food that they’ve dropped on the ground and they are sent to the toilet for at least 10 minutes.