Alright, this is an issue from a long time ago, but I had a dream about it recently, so It's back to the forefront of my consciousness.

When I was in middle school, the rumor was that I was gay. I wasn't, but that didn't really matter to anyone. The rumor prevailed. Wouldn't have cared much, except that because of this rumor, I was often beaten up in gym, and made fun of by classmates. All pretty normal middle school angsty crap right?

Well I told you that story, to tell you this story. In eighth grade we did a secret Santa for Christmas. It being Christmas time my classmates were being a bit nicer, and I was actually feeling good about life for once. I drew a name out of the hat, and as it turned out it was a girl I'd had a crush on the last year. She was usually pretty nice to me, and to be honest I really thought she was cute, so I thought about what to get her for a couple of days, and I knew she liked Huskies. So I went to a toy store, and I got, with my own money a medium sized plush husky. It was very soft, and very cute, and I knew she'd love it.

The day before Christmas break everyone in the class put their wrapped gifts on the front table, and the teacher handed the gifts out to their recipients. The girl who I'd bought the toy dog for, absolutely loved it. She didn't know it was from me, but hey I knew, and it made me feel really great. That feeling went away about five minutes later however, when I opened my own gift.

Whomever had drawn my name from the hat, must have really had something against me, or perhaps they just thought it was funny to see me hurt. I don't know. But a few days before Christmas in my school classroom, I opened what I thought would be something nice. When I peeled back the paper I saw that someone had thought it funny to give me a barbie doll.

Only a few people saw this, but it was still without a doubt the most mortifying experience of my life. It actually warped me for a very long time.

What I don't understand is, who could have thought that was funny?

Barbies ARE pretty scary. Even as a gift to little girls, because it's sort of a 'good morning! this kind of unreasonable body type is going to be laid upon you forever as a goal you need reach!'

Why does anyone think anything mean is funny tho ever, really? Took me ages to suss this one out.

I was actually at a Book of Mormon study, of all things, and some guy was reading from Alma, and towards the end of that there's just this huge long war story. He was harping on the why-these-two-groups-were-warring part tho, which was like, just a few sentences towards the bginning.

The one group, our 'good guys' as it were, were just defending. Their land, their families, their right to believe as they did, etc.

The 'bad' group had allied with another bad group knowing they hated the first dudes, and hoping to exploit this so most the good guys were killed and they could subvert the remaining.

Yep. Bad guys like doing bad stuff.

They do bad for bad's sake. They dig it. It gets them off. You find countless sitches where someone is being bullied by someone else, and the bulliee is aking the bullier the same questions-

why are you doing this.

what did I ever do to you?

why can't you just leave us alone?


and in this talk about this chapter of possibly not even real historical people and why they were being persecuted, it came to me- oh yeh. bad people do bad stuff because they LIKE doing bad stuff.

Sucks, but that's usually the answer.

ugh, barbies ._.
-huggles- I'm sorry they were so mean >.<
Why are kids like that? DX

I'm not exactly sure. The thing is though, that this kind of bullying happens constantly, and no one ever actually does anything about it. The teachers can't actually do anything though, because the schools have completely removed their power in the classroom. If two kids are beating the crap out of each other the teachers are told not to stop them, but to just try to convince them to stop verbally. >.> because when people are doing that, talking really works right? not.

If someone is being a total bully they should get kicked out of class, and at least suspended, if not expelled, and the teacher shouldn't have to deal with stupid unrealistic parents who always say the same "my timmy would never do this. why are you trying to defame my son." crap.