The mentality of a bully.

In school we had a bully on the playground. His name was Eric. Eric lived next door to me and bullied every kid on the block. Eric was so dumb that he attempted to bully the bigger kids on the block. They ended up kicking his ass every time. One would think Eric would learn that you don't bully kids bigger than you. But no. And so Eric would go home with black eyes, and ripped shirts and come back for more.

Some of the kids in the neighborhood were terrified of Eric. I mean terrified. Not me. I was a lot smaller than Eric. He would attempt to bully me and I'd go postal on him, much like a pole cat. Our parents would always break it up and we'd go off to our respective corners seething. My mom would tell me it wasn't nice to fight and my Dad would say, "Kick his ass if he touches you." And so I would try.

One day I was out in front yard with my father raking leaves and Eric and his father were out in the front yard raking leaves. I am not sure what transpired, but I got the gist of it -- Eric forgot to do something and his father began literally kicking his ass around the front yard, screaming at him at the top of his lungs, and calling him tons of names.

My father and I looked at each other and we both understood right at that moment why Eric was a bully.

So the point of my post -- If I knew Eric today and Eric had a journal my guess is that he'd bully people through his journal. He would be smart enough (I hope) that if he bullied people in person he'd either go to jail or be sued because there are laws against harassment like that.

And so in looking at those who go out of their way to publicly humiliate other people they are nothing but bullies like Eric.

It makes me really sad to see individuals bully other people. But really there is no talking to a bully -- they feel they are justified in what they do, they feel they are the victims and those they harass deserve it and have it coming.

My thoughts are with a friend of mine who is being harassed by a bully. My hope is that she rise above the situation, keep her head held high and ignore the bully. Bully's thrive on reaction, if you don't reacte that eventually stop.