RESPONDING to the discussion in this entry about a high school student being taunted by friends, Paul writes:

No, no, no. No way should this boy allow his “friends” to bully him. He should make these guys respect him or drop them.

For example, I had a longtime close friend who had become more and more sarcastic with me during college. I am not sarcastic, so the match was uneven. At that time, shrugging (mostly) or attacking were my primary responses with others. I called him one night and asked him to come over to discuss something. He did right away. Like me, he was also a wrestler; but he was only one weight class higher than me, and I knew I had superior skills. But it did not matter at that point. He was going to stop no matter who won. I told him I disliked his increased sarcasm and if it continued, “something bad is going to happen.” He immediately admitted that he was jealous of me and was apologetic. He stopped.

Unfortunately, over a couple of years we became distant, and I dropped him. I no longer enjoyed his company. He tried to reconnect, but I was no longer interested. Years later, I realized this is simply a natural part of life, where our friends somehow come and go. My friend is a good person. Many years later, I attended his mother’s funeral, and he seemed to appreciate it. It was great to see his family again.

My friend was trying to dominate, which I realized late. These “friends” are domineering boys. The boy needs to drop these bullies and find real friends. Moreover, these domineering characters are probably jealous, based on the distraught mother’s posts.

Maybe he is shy and finds it hard to make friends. He needs to know there are nice white boys who would be pleased to be friends with a big man on campus. I can recall that many years ago there might not have been such white boys considering peer pressure; but today is different. If he has no other friends at the school, he should try harder or mind his own business after dropping these bullies. 

We can think and talk about ideas, but there is nothing like concrete facts to make the ideas clear. It saves others from having to reinvent the wheel.

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