Bullies

When I was in year 11 at college I seemed to spend a startling amount of time getting threatened by people.

Alright, I’m exaggerating. I only got threatened twice that year, but it was probably the first and only times that someone had legitimately threatened to hurt me and actually meant it, so it stands out to me.

The first time was after I’d been texting a boy. I’d never met him, he lived in another town, but my friend knew him and had been texting him from my phone, and later in the day he wanted to continue the conversation with me. I built up something of a friendship with him, although I think he’d have preferred something more, judging by the amount of the times he told me I sounded like I was hot. I don’t really know how you tell that over text, but I think I was flattered.

I told him I wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship (I was a bit young and I didn’t know him at all), but that I’d still like it if we could keep talking as friends. He seemed fine with that, but then I didn’t hear from him for several weeks. I wasn’t overly fussed about this, but one day I texted him saying something along the lines of “Hey, I haven’t heard from you in ages. How’s everything?”

It wasn’t long before I got a reply. But it wasn’t from him, no. It was from his furious girlfriend, who I had not known existed.

What followed was a whole lot of her telling me to keep my hands off her man, while I tried to tell her not to worry, I wasn’t trying anything, I was just saying hi. She told me she wasn’t going to deal with my little schoolgirl bull**** and that she knew people who could find out where I lived. I can’t remember how that conversation ended, but I do remember that she never did calm down.

The second time also involved texting a random guy. I have since learned that texting random guys is just a bad idea.

A different friend had been texting a guy on my phone, again, and she eventually realised that he was the ex-boyfriend of one of her other friends. The other friend told her not to text him anymore, so she happily complied, but I was left to explain to him with my friend had suddenly disappeared.

Now, it has come to my attention that I say things, sometimes, that other people don’t want me to say. My brain doesn’t seem to realise that it could embarrass others, because it’s something that I wouldn’t mind other people saying about me. I can often be pretty blunt and don’t particularly like beating around the bush, so I find it difficult to take into account what I shouldn’t be saying.

I said to this boy that my friend couldn’t talk to him anymore because his ex-girlfriend asked her not to. I didn’t think there was an issue with this but it turns out I was pretty wrong.

The next day, this ex-girlfriend – Samantha – was refusing to speak to my friend because she didn’t want the guy knowing that she’d said not to talk to him. I sent Samantha a quick text telling her that I was the one who’d said that to him, and didn’t realise it would upset her, but please don’t be mad with the other friend because she hadn’t done anything wrong.

My phone died, and later, when I got home, I turned it on to find several messages from an unknown number, telling me to leave Samantha alone, or I’d be getting a beating. In the next few messages the unknown sender seemed to be becoming increasingly enraged that I hadn’t replied. I finally responded with something along the same lines I said to Samantha – I was just sticking up for my other friend who hadn’t done anything wrong, and I just wanted it to be known that I was the one at fault.

This person texting me, who it turned out was a girl in the year below me, didn’t seem to understand that I wasn’t insulting or harassing anyone, and after some discussion started to say that she knew exactly who I was, and I better watch my back. I went to an all girl school at the time, so needless to say I wasn’t particularly intimidated by a group of year 10 girls with a stupid grudge. In situations like these, I unleash the sass monster, because I don’t like people trying to intimidate me.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I replied. “I need to go find a rock to hide under.”

“Are you getting smart with me, b****?” She replied wildly. At least, I like to think she was replying wildly, because that would mean I’d gotten under her skin.

At this point, Samantha herself started texting me too, berating me for getting smart with her friend. As you can assume, I was unapologetic. Where in the book did it say I had to be polite to the girl who was threatening to gather a group of her pipsqueak friends and beat me up? I didn’t owe her anything, she wasn’t my mother.

The conversation continued with me shamelessly winding up the other girl until I ran out of texts. I probably don’t have a very good sense of self-preservation, because if she had decided to seek revenge, it would have ended badly for me, even if she and her friends were a year younger.

The funny thing about both these times that people started threatening me was that they didn’t seem to listen to reason. Before I started simply winding them up, I really tried to explain that I meant no harm. I even did it politely, until I got fed up. It astounds me that these people couldn’t just calm down or talk logically, but instead launched straight into promises of hunting me down. It’s weird to think that people like that exist.

Anyway, I was prompted to write this post because I saw Samantha working at the supermarket today. She didn’t see me, and she probably wouldn’t even have recognised me anyway, because it’s been so long. I let myself feel just the tiniest bit smug that the girl who had unleashed her slathering hounds on me appeared to be working in a Pakn’Save. Only a little smug though.