Quote: (11-11-2013 02:18 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:
To the guys that got relentlessly bullied when they were younger:
Did you guys have fathers around?
I did, but he was fat. He worked a lot and participated very little in my upbringing. He wouldn't be able to throw a punch to save his life himself, much less to protect me and I knew it right from age of 5 or so. I didn't have a strong image to associate myself to. I felt weak and bullies sensed it and capitalized on that.
The bullying stopped somewhere at age of 14 when I found other male role models trough movies and literature and my first real life male mentor it was my new gymnastics teacher who during sports classes allowed me to skip playing team sports with other boys where I was neglected at best and bullied at worst and where ball was never passed to me and I was just uselessly hanging around. He allowed me to spend solitary time in the weight room, he thought me to do pullups and bench press. I soon grew some muscle and became stronger then most of my classmates. It was something unbelievable to me because being physically weak was put so deep in my subconscious that I couldn't believe that I can be strong. it gave me great confidence and bullying stopped. I am very grateful to that old man, he was a true Teacher who cared for students, not just a system functionary like most education system workers.