Back when I was in Junior High, I was picked on. They use the term bullied and I’ve said before I was bullied, but compared to what kids go through now a days, I’m not sure that’s what happened. I got made fun of, nobody really laid a hand on me that I remember. And until I learned the phrase that I still live by today ‘I don’t give a shit”, it continued. Once they realized it didn’t bother me anymore, they gave up. Between that and my main antagonist getting in a fight with me, things stopped. I know what your thinking, I kicked his ass and people stopped screwing with me. No, that didn’t happen.
Brian made fun of me, every chance he got. He hung out with Wally who did the same. When he wasn’t making fun of me, he was goading me to fight him. Brian was the cool kid who was an athlete. Wally was his sniveling wannabe. Anyways, we were sitting in class before the bell rang and he was taunting me as usual.
Brian – “Come on, fight me. Let’s get together after school. Let’s go pussy, you chicken” – or something like that.
Me – “Fine, you want to fight, let’s fight.”
Brian – after the shock that I said yes wore off “Good, meet me behind the gas station after school.”
Me – “No, you want to fight me, find me. I’m not going to “meet” you anywhere. But if you come across me outside of school, we’ll do it. I’m not doing anything you say, and am not meeting you anywhere.”
I don’t remember what was said after that, but you get the idea. It didn’t end there though. Now he just kept talking about what he was going to do when he saw me. Blah, blah, blah, I ignored him.
A week or 2 later, I was hanging out at my buddy’s house. We were out in his backyard, throwing a football. Guess who comes walking up. Brian & Wally. They came up and offered to play us, 2 on 2, in football. Sure, why not. See where I said Brian was a good athlete, well, so was I. I just never played for my school. But in the coming years in high school, I didn’t get picked on as much. Mainly because I schooled most of the athletes in the school in whatever we played in gym class. I regularly beat guys on the basketball team and it pissed them off, but it did get me a little respect. But back to the backyard. We started playing, I don’t really remember a whole lot about the game. I know my friend wasn’t very athletic, but neither was Wally. But Brian and I went at it, hard. The last play of the game resulted in me grabbing his shirt to tackle him and ripping a huge hole in it. And apparently he didn’t like that and it was game on.
He came at me, I defended. All I did was keep my arms up on defense and blocked most of what he threw. He only connected 3 times and they were all body shots that did nothing. I never threw a punch. Eventually he got bored and him and Wally went home. A few people at school heard about it, tried to tell me I got my butt kicked. I just shrugged my shoulders and asked if they saw a mark on me. Eventually, they let it go and I learned that I didn’t really care who thought what about me. Once they knew it didn’t bother me, they left me alone.
But why do I bring all this up now? Well, when I first got on Facebook years ago, I friended anybody in my graduating class. I’ve even made decent friends with some of them that I never really knew before. Actually met my wife doing that being as she was in my graduating class. Well, there were a few friends that I didn’t friend request. You can probably guess 2 of them. I’m telling this story in the hopes that whoever does the “people you may know” for Facebook, reads this, because I’m getting tired of seeing this.
He’s on top of my list, and I see him over and over again on my sidebar. Stupid Facebook.
That was the closest I’ve ever come to a fight, I guess technically it is, just depends how you look at it. That’s partly because back then I was 6”2’, 140 lbs with a white man’s afro and glasses. Now I’m 6”3’, 260 lbs with a shaved head and usually a pissed off look on my face. I don’t get messed with anymore. Some people actually fear me, I find that funny.
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