Worst thing about Middle School? Chompers.

There has been a lot of talk about bullying lately, in the news media and elsewhere.  It's a big issue, and one that is close to my heart.  I've thought about writing down one of my bully stories as a "blast from the past" entry before, but figured it would be a bit too personal.  However, after reading this post by a great blogger, I decided that writing what you're afraid of isn't such a bad idea.  The writing below isn't great, fyi (a lot of showing instead of telling - it's a memory, after all), but if you feel like reading a bully story, read on!

Not much in life is more difficult than being thirteen.  I mean fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen were pretty bad, but thirteen really stands out to me as one of my worst years.  It was the year I was offically Defriended.

When I was younger, my mum had this book about workplace politics.  I think it was from the seventies or something, because the cover had that swirly seventies font on it and the colours were all faded and retro.  The book simplified workplace politics by using shapes.  It said that each person was a circle of energy.  We all start out the same size, but as we go on, some circles can shrink or grow.  The most common way for circles to grow was to take bites out of other circles.  But, then, where does that leave the circle that was bitten?  Smaller, of course.  And, apparently smaller circles are easier to nibble on, so the smaller someone’s circle gets, the more of a target she becomes.  It went on to talk about more positive ways to grow and yadda yadda, but the main thing that stuck with me was this image of a person’s energy just taking a chomp out of another’s for their own gain.

For me, that’s what being thirteen was all about.  Middleschoolers are chompers.  I’m not going to delve into the why, because there are plenty of people out there now talking about that.  I’m just going to give one example of how, my own.

I moved to North Carolina after grade six.  Most kids in the little town where I went to school had been living there since they were in diapers.  Their mum’s smoked pot together.  They knew each other’s secrets.  They’d dated each other’s brothers.  This was something I just couldn’t relate to, having moved around so much in my younger years.

It was really difficult to break in.

But, by grade 8, I thought I had.  I mean, I’d encountered a chomper here or there through the semesters, but I always felt like I had a relatively close core group of friends that I could turn to.  I’d even landed a boyfriend at one point (even though I dumped him two weeks later because I didn’t like the blue plaid vest he wore to the school dance).  

I was part of the alternative crowd, the kind of grungy artistic misfits.  There was a girl in this group who, I’ll admit, I admired.  We’ll call her Raven, because that (tacky as it is) kind of suits her.  Raven was a no-nonsense kind of chick who always had the greatest school photo because she stared down the camera with a death glare.  Despite all that, her personality was magnetic.  People were drawn to her been-there-done-that confidence.  She was frank, honest, and really good at soccer. :)

Raven and I were both in the drama club in grade eight, when the high school handed us this amazing opportunity.  A select few from our club could go up and be extras in their production of Alice in Wonderland.  I thought I’d died and gone to heaven because, in my mind, I was destined for the stage.

During rehearsals, there was a lot of down time.  We were extras, after all.  I still remember the banana coloured tiles that lined the hallway outside the theater in the high school.  We all sat in on the floor, resting our heads on our flannel shirts and listening to the Grateful Dead on our walkmans. (walkmen? lol)

People huddled in pairs or threes, chatting about weekend plans or their latest Alice in Chains cd.  This is when I started to notice the pattern.  The pattern that I was left out of.  I was never in one of those huddles, unless I forced my way in.

I still remember the day I really realized something was off.  There had been hints here and there that I was being excluded - concerts that people “forgot” to invite me to, rides that never showed up, giggles behind my back.  I always managed to explain them away somehow.  My friends wouldn’t exclude me on purpose, would they?  

But this one day, I returned from the bathroom to our little squat on the hallway floor to a series of hushes.  Like a director had been there to orchestrate it, the open spot in the circle was swallowed up and all I was met with were backs.  Chompers, I like I told you.

The feeling defies words.  Your cheeks sting, like someone’s burning the skin from behind.  Then, the needles hit your eyeballs and you have to blink because you know you might cry, even though that’s the last thing you want to do.  A sort of lump rises in your throat.  No, it’s not like that.  It’s more like everything above your abdomen seizes up and twists together into a giant knot.  You can’t breathe, you can’t swallow, your heart is pounding.

The worst part is, in your mind, you just keep playing all of the stupid things you’ve done.  Awkward comments you’ve made, ridiculous questions you’ve asked.  They all hit you like slaps while your brain tells you, “Of course they don’t like you.  Look at yourself.”

I can’t tell you how alone I felt.  I mean, these were my friends.  These were the people I went to when other people chomped on me.  I didn’t realize that your own friends could chomp you too.

I went, with my book, to find another corner in the banana hallway.  Whatever, if they didn’t like me, I didn’t need them anyway.

But I did, of course.  When I got home, the tears came.  My poor mom, always a bit too connected to my emotions, frantically tried to figure out a way to make it right.  Sidenote to the Moms out there: let me just tell you, it’s beyond your control.  Anything you do can make things worse.  She listened, and didn’t call their mums to bitch them out, thank god.

I wanted to know why, though.  I couldn’t just let sleeping dogs lie.  So, the next day, with shaking hands, I picked up the phone and called one of my “friends.”

“Hello?”

“Hey M, it’s Amanda.”

“Oh....”

“What’s up?”

“Um.  Nothing.”

Deep breath.  “Okay, so I’m just going to jump right in.  I noticed that you guys, well - everyone, has been ignoring me lately.  Um...is it my imagination?”  My voice seemed to raise two octaves over those three sentences.

Silence.  Finally, “No...."

“No what?”

“No, it’s not your imagination.  We just...decided not to be your friend anymore.”  Pause.  “I’m really sorry.”

My mouth fell open.  “WHAT!?”  People do that!?  They just decide to de-friend someone, as a GROUP!?  Apparently they do.

“Yeah.  Well, after spring break when you came back with the same haircut as Raven, she called you a poser.  And...well, we all agreed.  So...”

“I got that haircut over Spring Break!  I hadn’t even seen Raven!  How could that make me a poser!?”  

Actually, scratch that.  I didn’t say that.  At the time, I had no spine.  Instead, I said, “Oh.  Okay.  Well, thanks for being my friend till now.”

And then I hung up.

Time to find new friends I guess.

WHEW!  I feel like I just vomited into my blog.  Sorry, guys.  Anyway, do any of you have stories of being bullied?  Come on, share with me your war-tales from the battlefields of junior high.