@MentORPHEUS

relentlessly bullied me

Did they most filthily and uglily insult you such as with "you don't go well" or smth?

Kidding around aside, I got bullied a lot too. Partly by smaller kids who thought they could prove their worth by starting shit with one of the larger kids (me), preferably one with bad social skills and few friends (also me). Partly by older kids who somehow got their jollies by making younger kids' lives suck a bit more. Partly by just shitheads being shitheads.

Some of the platitudes you were complaining about turned out to be true in many cases. Many of them had shitty home lives and didn't know how to deal with it, and so took their anger and frustration out on other kids. Some just needed a good punch in the nose.

Funny thing: by 9th grade, most of the bullying directed at me had stopped, and by 10th grade it just didn't happen at all anymore. Some of my previous bullies even apologized to me, and we ended up being on fairly friendly terms. I think the cessation of the bullying is partly due to everyone being somewhat more mature in high school than in middle school, and partly due to my hitting the weights and getting scary-looking along with a reputation for being one of the better wrestlers.

Heh. I hadn't thought about some of this shit in years. Some of it was my own stupid fault for failing to avoid the places the bullies were. I stubbornly kept trying to make friends in the neighborhood area instead of just sticking to other areas that were bully-free.