Bullies are portrayed as violent, but more often, they are passive-aggressive. Of course, only an abject coward would pick on a little helpless kid.
Being bullied in school was never a matter of someone coming up to me and punching me in the face. Now that I look back on it, it was more of a passive-aggressive kind of thing - people calling you names in a crowd so you can't tell who said it, for example. Or someone comes up behind you and knocks your books out of your hands or hits you - and then runs away so you can't tell for sure who it was. That sort of thing - the common denominator was that the "Bully" wasn't very brave, but instead relied on hit-and-run tactics, instead. And if caught out, they claimed they were the victim - true cowardice!
They were passive-aggressive.
In the RV world, every modern campground has an extensive set of "rules" posted, that often seem onerous. But behind each one is an incident or incidents that created the rule. And one of the biggies is you have to respect other people's space - particularly the space they paid for. So some of the most common rules we see are no taking shortcuts through other people's sites and no parking your car or boat trailer or motorcycle or whatever on an "empty" site.
With regard to the first rule, it is usually kids who are fault for this - as they have no sense of personal space. They can be forgiven for these infractions, provided they stop doing it when requested (and their parents don't try to defend the behavior). For example, we were camped near North Hero, Vermont a few years back and some kids decided that our site would make an excellent BMX bike obstacle course, which I suppose was OK before we got there. Once we took the site and settled in, some of the kids thought the race was still on, and zoomed right by our camper. A simple word to the kids sufficed and they found somewhere else to play.
Some adults are not so considerate. I've seen situations where people get in a habit of cutting through someone's site to get to the restroom - to save a few steps. And when the site tenant says something to them, the trespasser gets all huffy about it. That is why it is one of the most common rules we see at campgrounds - no cutting through other people's sites!
Parking cars in "empty" sites is another no-no. as is "borrowing" picnic tables from adjacent sites. We see this rule mentioned particularly in more crowded State Parks or places where there is boating recreation. Dad doesn't see why he should have to park his truck and boat trailer in the designated parking site at the boat launch! Why not park on the adjacent "empty" site? After all, no one is using it, right? So Dad goes off fishing for the day and meanwhile, Harry and Edna check in to the "empty" site only to find it occupied by someone's boat trailer and truck. And the "someone" is nowhere to be found. So they have to call the Park Ranger and then a search ensues for the missing fisherman. Hours later, he shows up and acts all offended, as if he is the victim, for having to move his truck and trailer.
In some Parks, they simply have the vehicles towed. In others, they throw you out. It is a massive pain-in-the-ass for the Park staff to address situations like this, particularly on a busy weekend. And there is no reason, other than selfishness to take over another site as if you were entitled to the extra space - when no one else is. And this is a typical passive-aggressive tactic - spreading out and taking space that isn't yours, and then daring someone to say something about it - and if they do, acting all the victim. And today, people seem to be willing to side with the "victim" here - "Hey, he was only gone for a few hours, what's the big deal?"
But we see this in all walks of life. The guy in the crowded suburb comes home to find a stranger's car parked in front of his driveway (or even in it!). After a hard day at work (and a hellish commute) he now has to go door to door, asking people if they know who owns the beige Camry parked in front of his driveway. And like clockwork, when the perpetrator is found, he will act all huffy and pissed-off that you want to access the property you own and could he please remove his illegally parked car?
In some neighborhoods, this sort of thing can escalate - and people intentionally leave their cars blocking driveways to "see if someone wants to make an issue of it." Cars get towed, punches are thrown, a lot of bad blood ensues. It is a stupid game and only bullies play it.
You see this in other venues as well - the latest trend is people putting their feet through between the seats on an airplane and using the armrest of the passenger ahead of them as a foot rest - often for their bare, smelly feet. And if you do something perfectly innocent, like slam the tray table down on their foot, breaking three toes, now you're the bad guy. Life just isn't fair, is it?
And that is the nature of bullying - passive-aggression. The stereotype of the bully as a "bad boy" with a crew-cut and a muscle shirt is misguided. They are often not big people, but pick on even smaller or those perceived as more vulnerable. In many cases, bullies are cowards who use passive-aggression to intimidate and harass others. Bullies can even be far weaker than the people they bully. I recounted before how a young girl used to poke me and call me names on a crowded school bus, knowing full-well that if I said anything (or hauled-off and smacked her) she would cry "unfair!" and play the victim, and I would be called the bully. Again, the stereotype of bullies (as illustrated above) as being bigger and more powerful than the bullied, is flawed.
Often it is little, stupid things they do. For example, you are in the grocery store. The aisles are narrow and the store puts these "mid-aisle displays" halfway down the aisle, blocking traffic. Karen marches down the aisle and parks her cart right at this choke-point, and just to make sure no one may pass until she has finished her half-hour long selection of instant pudding, puts the cart at an angle.
If you say "excuse me!" she pretends not to hear you. If you physically move her cart, well, she acts like you raped her child. Her precious groceries! They were almost touched by another human! She has no choice now but to abandon her cart and start over! Call store security! Have this cart-toucher arrested! Pervert! Skreeeeeeeeeee!
And yea, it is that subtle - in fact, bullies enjoy these subtle games because when you call them out on it, they can say you are the crazy one. "I was just shopping innocently when this brute bore down on me, insisting that I move my cart! He manhandled all my vegetables and pushed the cart right into my gimpy leg! Oh, woe is me!"
And so it goes. The guy who parks in your driveway was "just stopping in to see a neighbor" so what's the big deal? I mean, the car was only there for a half-hour or so, couldn't you wait? Yea, I guess that makes sense - to circle the block for a half-hour until the trespasser decides he wants to leave - so you can get onto the property you own and are paying for. The passive-aggressive bully spins this around and tries to argue he is the victim.
What brought this to mind was we came to this campground yesterday after a hard day driving down back country roads in Pennsylvania. We're talking mountain roads that have speed limits of 35 MPH. And although narrow and bumpy, they were still in better shape than most of I-81. So, tired and ready for a rest, we drive to our site to find... some asshole's car parked in it.
We knock on trailer doors nearby and one helpful gentleman tells us who it was and "He's always doing that and pissing everyone off!" Turns out the guy has a "permanent" site (living in a trailer park) and he decided to take away his own parking spaces by putting up "bottle trees" in his driveway. I do not like people with bottle trees now. We finally get ahold of the front desk (10 calls, they never answer their phone) and a half-hour later, a truculent passive-aggressive bully shows up, moaning about how inconvenienced he is, having to give up his prime lounge chair at the pool to come move his car.
Mark tries to be nice, and says, "Well, sorry to have to bother you..." but before he can finish, the guy goes off on him, "Being sarcastic, eh? That's nice!" at which point I step in and say, "Just move your fucking car, asshole!" The dude is a 350-lb tub-o-lard and lives alone. The car is a 1999 Santa-Fe with one window taped in place with duct tape. This is a person losing in the game of life, and his idea of "winning" is to try to carve out an extra parking space as a privilege he is entitled to.
But like most bullies, he was in fact, a coward. And once challenged, he backed down quickly. People like that, suck. And humanity in general is full of people like that. The guy was from New Jersey, and it seems the worst drivers have New Jersey tags. And now I think about it, my Dad was from New Jersey. So no wonder he was an asshole, or as they captioned him in the Syracuse Herald-Journal, "Mr. Asher Holman."
This is the guy who euthanized our cats when I went away to college, because he hated cats. He told the family that "they ran away!" If that doesn't trigger all you animal-lovers out there, nothing will. No, no, he was objectively and scientifically, an asshole.
So why do people act this way? Well, it starts with competition and people feeling they are losing at the game. We are nearer to big Eastern cities, and we forget, living on a tiny island, how aggressive people in big cities are - over stupid things. When I moved to the DC area, it amazed me how people would tailgate and drive aggressively. If you left three car lengths ahead of you on the GW Parkway, someone would zoom in and cut you off, convinced that an "empty space" in the line of traffic was equivalent to "getting ahead." And I guess since they were losing at work, losing in their marriage, and losing in their bank accounts, that "winning" at the morning commute was the only thing they had left.
So you see this shit in the cities and suburbs - people fighting over parking spaces, people parking on others' property, and people - like and old cat trying to take over the bed - slowly pushing boundaries a micro-inch at a time, and then professing sainted ignorance when called out on their bullshit. Who me? - the ultimate cry of the bully.
In the end, the bullies never win, or if they do, their victory is illusory and short-lived. A teenager in my high school used to pull these passive-aggressive tricks on me as well. He ended up driving his car onto a frozen lake that wasn't frozen enough. Suicide? I suspect so. Years after high school graduation, he was one of "those guys" drinking himself to death in bars and re-living the "glory days" of high school.
I guess he won. When he died, I didn't feel vindicated, but barely could remember what he looked like. Five years later and the king of the halls of high school is literally a nobody.
But sadly, like squirrels, more passive-aggressive bullies move in as you eliminate one or more of them. There is always the Kevin or Karen who wants to park just a little bit too close to you so they can swing their door wide and you can't get into your car. Even homeless people, as I noted before, engage in this sort of game - in fact, they do it a lot, which is why people who live near a homeless encampment have a dim view of them, while people safely ensconced in walled and gated communities want to beatify them. That is the nature of bullying everywhere - bullies are first to play the victim card.
Sounds a lot like an ex-President we have, no? I've never seen such a whiny bitch in all my life! And he is the first to say, "Who, Me? You must be crazy! It wasn't an insurrection! They were just tourists!"
You see how it works. Passive-Aggressive.
How to deal with these people is always problematic. My Dad (the asshole) would say things like, "You just need to stand up to bullies! Punch him in the face! Then you'll be best friends!" And that is the trope sold on movies and on television. The picked-on kid punches the bully and they get into a fistfight and when it is all over, they are best friends for life! Missing a few teeth and a couple of black eyes, but best friends forever!
I am not sure that ever played out in real life and movie producers and television producers who perpetuate the "beat the bully" myth should be ashamed of themselves. Because, in reality, you punch the bully and he says, "I'm tellin!" and you end up in the principal's office and get in trouble. Meanwhile, the bully is outside laughing and making faces at you through the office window. The Principal just gave him Carte Blanche to bully you further. And yes, sometimes the bullies can even be teachers.
So the punch-in-the-face is no answer. Mark, having had to endure a lifetime in retail, says "kill them with kindness" which may work with a difficult Karen wanting to return a product to a store that never carried it. But with passive-aggressive bullies, well, they just mock you more.
Ignore it is the other piece of useless advice that parents and friends like to give. "They just want attention, if you ignore them, they will go away!" Nice idea - they don't go away and they take your ignoring them as a challenge to escalate further and further. So that idea sucks as well.
You can always leave - and that is an option. When my Mother would get drunk and - yes - start bullying use (often with a kitchen knife) the best option was to leave. Which is good advice to a young adult who has their own job, apartment, and car. Not very helpful advice to a teenager without a driver's license, stuck at home while Mom is OD'ing.
So that is advice that works some of the time. Bullied in high school? Graduate and leave - which is all you can really do, even as the bully tries to thwart your plans. Bullied at work? Find a new job - but of course, that often means the bully "wins" - at least temporarily. Companies that are 100% passive-aggressive people go bankrupt quickly. So if everyone of merit leaves (and this happens, over time, more often than you think!) eventually the bully gets his comeuppance. In most cases.
Bullies bully because it works, at least in the short-term. So I think the only way to stop it is to eliminate the rewards. Whether this is a punch in the face or ignoring them, I do not know. Both techniques seem to be of limited utility as I noted above.
Then again, if there was a simple solution to bullying, there would not be any bullies, would there? The fact that people sometimes "win" at these stupid games is evidenced by the fact that bullies continue to exist. It is like gamblers, though - they lose most of the time, but hold out for the sweet release of endorphins or whatever, when they finally get a small jackpot. Intermittent rewards are the strongest conditioning factor. And bullying is probably one of the least rewarding pastimes.
The weird thing is, some people admire bullies. We have a plethora of movies and television shows glorifying organized crimes - the most cowardly bullies in the world. It doesn't take courage to stand behind a gun, particularly when you have a half-dozen other thugs behind you, backing you up. To stand up to that requires real courage - or foolhardiness. But the reality of organized crime isn't criminal thugs shooting at one another (which might actually require real courage) but thugs intimidating and ruining the lives of honest citizens just trying to run a business and get ahead - even slightly.
But we glorify the myth and make these people out to be heroes - and more powerful and intimidating than they actually are. Because the reality is, few mobsters and gangsters ever retire. Most are arrested, put in jail, or gunned down themselves. There is no glamour or glory, just meanness and stupidity.
So I guess there is no real answer, other than to say, "Fuck you - move your shitty car!" and move on with life. It was telling that the neighbors we spoke to all hated this guy as he was prone to parking on their lots when "they weren't around." You wonder what motivates people like that - to alienate everyone and be a jerk. I suppose it gives them street cred in the Jerk Club.
People suck - let's face it. Or maybe my attitude will change once I am further away from the greater New York City area....
