Bullying is invasive and sneaky more often than not.
As adults we generally have enough nous not to be frankly bullied as we might have been when at school.
In those formative years we are so busy trying to establish our own identities, that if someone bigger than us says we have to do something, we may end up doing it out of fear of not being right, and therefore not eligible to join the gang. It takes a brave person at school to be happy not conforming to the norm.
Which is of course why schools are full of social groups who have nothing but contempt for the other groups. In my day that was mods and rockers. I was a mod and held nothing but ridicule for greasy rockers!
The social groups don't really change just their names, so now there are chavs, skater boys,and as there was way back when, the geeks and dweebs. And no-one wanted to be associated with the last two, except the other losers and misfits. I say that as one who worked hard to leave the last group in one school and reinvented myself for the next.
As we get older and leave the confines of education we start to make our own way. But again we can fall prey to the biggest voice at work. If that person and their acolytes all watch a TV programme that we don't, if we want to fit in, it won't be long before we are watching it so we can join in the conversation.
I think this is why I love being self employed, I skip in and out of others conversations at work. I feel no pressure to join in.I can be a little rebel all on my own terms. I don't care about the craze for knowing about which celebrity has done what now. Although living in the world I may absorb information about them..... Did you know that Cheryl Cole has got malaria, for example. I hear you say 'who' in America from here! Quite! I know this ridiculous piece of info from clicking onto Yahoo to get at my mail yesterday.
I have never bought a celebrity mag ever. I see them at the check out and think who on earth is that person who has just got married, lost 15 stone, ridden an elephant or whatever thing is deemed newsworthy about said celeb!
Ooooh I seem to have drifted off the point I started with here!
In terms of bullying, now all those people who want to be my friend are now busy hiding the evidence of celeb mags, as I am obviously so scathing about them, that the fear would be that I wouldn't deign to give anyone the time of day if I knew they were reading such tripe!
It's taken me years to feel happy about admitting what I do read for example. My sister, eldest son and a couple of my good friends read books I consider to be to high brow for my taste. I read books that are not. So what!
It's ok for me to have my taste and for others to have theirs. There is no right taste.
And this is why bullying is so insidious, we want to belong, we want to be liked, we want not to be laughed at or thought stupid. But the trouble is someone will always think those things of us. Not because there is anything wrong with us, but because they have issues from their past which makes them behave in a certain way towards us. And when they do they have no idea of the affect on us. Sometimes we can laugh it off and others it will cut us to the quick. All we can do as mere mortals is understand this, get support from people who do accept us and move on.
We can't please all of the people all of the time, and that is okay.
And to end on what I hope will be seen as a reminder rather than bullying! ..... Don't forget to put up photographs on Beautiful World we need your pics and we need to spread the word about it.
