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| Photographer: Andrea Cortes 010115 |
I am going to dare
to assume that we all have one person on Facebook that we always have something
to say about; it's not that we don’t like this person, but we weren't friends
to begin with. We accepted their friend request just because we happened to go
to the same high school, or we met through a friend, or at a blank event, and
we thought we might as well snoop around (maybe we have acquaintances that I
actually care about.)
To my eyes, that's
bullying. If not, at least some kind of harassment or intimation, whether this
person knows about the comments we make about them, or not. As a grown adults
we don't consider bullying as part of our daily lives, but have you ever called
a woman 'disgusting' because she happens to be thick or overweight, and she
still wears clothing that 'may look better in a skinny person'? How dare she,
right? Have you called Justin Bieber, or any other male celebrity in his time,
a fag? Yeah, still bullying. No, no excuses; there is no I AM JUST KIDDING.
The main reason why I am writing this entry is because I've caught
myself in the act, and I am embarrassed. Here's the story. I started a new job, and as it tends to happen, we want to be accepted; we want to be taken into the circle. Once I start warming up, I believe that I have no trouble blending in and making a spot in the circle. But there is always somebody left behind, somebody that tried to talk to you first because 'maybe, just maybe' because you are the new person, you might be their only friend. Then, it's like high school all over again. You get into the 'popular' crowd, and leave that person behind, right where they were. They're used to it; no harm done, they just thought that 'maybe this time will be different.' So now I hear the comments others make about certain person, and I put in my two-cents too; that's when I stopped. I tried to convince myself that I was only speaking the truth which in some sense, I am; but there are other ways to do it. I've never claimed to be perfect, at my age, I'm still learning from recent mistakes. And even though I have rectified my behaviour now, I still disapprove having done it, and seeing it happen. So here I am, once again back to this blog telling you how it is, doing my thing, speaking my mind as I admit to my shitty personality, that it is never OK to bully. Bullying doesn't stop at high school graduation; it follows us everywhere. Life gets better because we choose to ignore others and move on, but the mean people are still out there; filing their tongue as sharp as possible ready to bite a piece of anybody. Let's watch the way we talk, and live up to our own expectations, and make sure that our kids will grow up in a bully-free zone. We don't want them to go through what we went through, or even worse, to have them go through the same things we put others through. Do you?