“Put Out or Get Out!”

When I was a freshman in high school, I heard the horror stories. I saw the humiliation of several girls- girls who were asked out by boys in the top echelons of the social hierarchy. When you’re a target of bullying, you learn very quickly to keep not only your eyes, but your ears peeled, and as a result, you pick up a lot of cross talk.

These guys would take these girls out, treat them to dinner and maybe a movie. Next, they’d take them to the countryside, out to the back roads, and proposition them. Sure, many girls would give in and get thrown away like yesterday’s trash.

But some would refuse. And when a girl politely declined, the guy would get angry, kick the girl out of his vehicle, and leave her stranded on the side of the road. She’d be alone in the dead of night!

Back then, there were no cellphones and no internet, and the poor girl would have to thumb it to the nearest house to call her parents.

I overheard these girls talking in the girls’ room, over in the next stall. On this particular day, a girl was crying and confiding to her best friend. She’d fallen victim to this routine and paid for her solid refusal to cave into any demands for sex.

Although I wasn’t friends with the girl, my heart hurt for her, and I became furious with the guy who did that to her. I remember thinking to myself,

“Soooo…some creep thinks just because he took her to dinner and a movie, that suddenly she’s obligated to let him get in her pants???”

Oh yes! I was steaming! Judging from the way these girls talked, the schmuck who took this girl out acted like he’d done her a favor by asking her on a date- told her to her face that she should be thankful he even considered her!

The longer I eavesdropped, the angrier I became until I just had to get out of there or the temptation to open my mouth and insert my two cents would surely overwhelm me.

Who did this asshole think he was? Just learning of the privileged mindsets of some of those chumps in the popular crowd infuriated me! It was guys like him who made it hard on the decent guys who did respect women.

Their delusions of grandeur!

Thinking they were somehow entitled to a cheap roll in the hey!

Thinking that any girl who dated them was somehow “lucky” and that she should be on her knees thanking him for choosing her!

The delusional assumption that their reproductive organs were made of gold and that a girl was supposed to just grant him access to her body without question!

Ugh! All of it made me sick to my stomach and I couldn’t help but feel compassion for that poor girl a few stalls from me! It was a conversation I never forgot overhearing. I decided then and there that if some jerk from Oakley High asked me out, there was no way I’d be desperate enough to accept, and I didn’t give two hoots how “popular” he was! It wasn’t worth the risk.

No way was I going to fall victim to that! Being a victim of bullying was bad enough. I wasn’t about to add something like that to a repertoire of disses that was already a mile long. No, thank you!

These creeps would also threaten girls with things like, “If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone you did. And who do you think everyone will believe? You or me?”

It was the arrogant and narcissistic guys who had a way of forcing these girls to give them what they wanted. And if the girl wasn’t nearly as popular as the guy, all the worse for her! If she did give in, he’d use her once, then go ghost, while telling everyone he scored with her and putting her down like a dog. If she didn’t give in, he’d put her out, then lie and tell everyone he did score with her but kicked her out because she was a lousy lay.

She was damned no matter what she decided!

I look back now and am thankful I overheard that conversation because it forced me to make a few critical decisions, one of which was to avoid guys in the popular crowd like the plague and date guys who were a little more mature and knew how to treat a girl.

Eventually, I’d meet a guy in the college-age range, and he would become my first serious boyfriend. He allowed me the freedom to decide when I was ready. And although the relationship ended after a year and a half, I can look back and remember that he respected me and never guilted nor threatened me into doing anything I didn’t want to do.

Understand that this is a form of bullying and sadly, it’s something that’s rarely talked about. The creep in this story tried to bully this girl into giving herself to him before she was ready- he played on her fear of being left stranded, then humiliated, to get what he wanted from her. And when she stood firm in her decision, he made good on his threat and put her in a potentially dangerous situation.

I admire her for sticking to her guns, although she was punished for it. And I’m pretty sure she looks back on it today and is glad she respected herself and didn’t give in regardless of the end result.

Even today, many of the women from my class think I and a few others missed out because  “we didn’t date the (right) guys in school.” But I beg to differ. I was fortunate not to have dated any of them because there’s no telling what might have happened to me if I had.

Know this! It’s okay to say no when someone demands you do something you’d rather not do. Avoid anyone who thinks they’re entitled to sex or thinks you owe them something. Because you owe no one a damn thing!

No means no! And if your date cannot respect you for it, then that person is not good enough for you. You deserve so much better. You might have to wait a while longer before a better person comes along, but anyone who truly deserves you is worth the wait!

A Much-Needed Rest

Greetings to all my fellow bloggers and readers. I’ll be taking a much-needed rest for the next week or so as I’m exhausted and haven’t been feeling well. I also need to do a good Fall cleaning. In the meantime, I have posts that are scheduled. And know that I shall return and when I do, I’ll continue to respond, read and converse with you all.

Wishing you all a great and prosperous week and weekend!

RIP Eddie Van Halen

Yesterday, I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Eddie Van Halen, an iconic rock guitarist that I grew up loving! Being a Rock Music fan all through school, he and Van Halen were one of the musicians and rock groups who helped me through some very difficult times in school.

Music was one of my biggest go-tos and helped put a smile back on my face! I cannot count the times I rocked out in the privacy of my bedroom to Van Halen hits like, “Eruption,” “When it’s Love,” “I’ll Wait,” “Feels So Good,” “Jump,” “Panama,” “Hot For Teacher,” and other awesome VH hits!

I only saw them in concert once and that was at the Monsters of Rock Concert in Memphis during the summer of 1988.  The Monsters of Rock tour included Van Halen and other awesome groups Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica, and Kingdom Come.

This is truly the end of an awesome Era in Rock Music and Eddie will be greatly missed!

Schools Will Never Admit it. Here’s Why Many of Them Protect Bullies.

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If you’re bullied in school, you must go through the proper channels by reporting the bullying to teachers and the principal. It’s only legal. But sadly, when a student is bullied and reports the abuse, many schools will protect the bullies instead of holding them accountable for their bad behavior.

Here’s why:

1. Because the bullies have connections to local politicians and crime kingpins. (This is especially true in small towns)

2. Because the bullies often score high academically, which makes the school look good.

3. The bullies are athletes on the school sports teams.

4. The bullies are on the cheerleading squad and in sororities and fraternities.

5. The bullies suck up to faculty to win loyalty.

Understand that, right or wrong, many schools will go out of their way to protect the reputations of who they deem to be their brightest and best students and blame the targeted student for their bullies’ horrid behavior. These bullies make the school look good.

Schools have enormous power, and sadly, many parents of bullied kids are single and raising children on one paycheck. How do they fight against such powerful entities?
This is why Sovereign Immunity for schools must be abolished, and they must be held accountable if the child is maimed, murdered, or commits suicide.

bullied victim gagged silence shut up

Moving a target of bullying to a different school sounds like a good idea but is not always feasible. And homeschooling isn’t affordable for some of these moms and dads.
If you’re a parent who’s fighting to keep your child safe and your options are limited, the only way to stay in the fight is to keep speaking out- through word of mouth, social media, the news media- whatever it takes.

In this situation, DOCUMENTATION IS SO IMPORTANT!!!!!

Take steps to raise awareness and be there for your child. Reassure them that if they need to talk, you’re there to listen and give them a shoulder to lean on.

Encourage your child to document every bullying incident and do your own documentation. Use the 5W rule- (What, who, where, when, and why) document what happened, who was involved and the names of any bystanders and witnesses, where it happened (bathroom, locker room, hallway), when it happened (exact date and time), and why it happened (retaliation, etc.).

document write record journal

As a parent, write about any physical bruises you see when the child comes home from school. Write about any torn clothing, broken eyeglasses or hearing aids, stolen property, crying, your kid’s emotional state- everything! And jot it down in detail!
Document the school’s reaction to any reports of bullying, both yours and your child’s.

Save any emails, replies, and letters from the school.

Build your own case!

Only then will you have the ammo needed to fight it!

 

Neediness is Unattractive and Repelling!

Closeup portrait unhappy woman giving loser sign on forehead, looking at you with anger and hatred on face isolated on gray background.

Neediness is not a good look on anyone. It’s unattractive and off-putting. To be blunt, it’s downright gross! It’s the equivalent of an overpowering stench one must hold their nose and run from to keep from getting sick.

When a target is bullied, they often become needy. Because they’re shunned and rejected for so long, they become ravenously hungry for any morsel of approval and will lap up anything that even looks like it. But they often see acceptance when it’s really only tolerance.

Anytime a target becomes needy, some people might include them in their groups, but not because they like them or want to be around them. They’ll only pretend to like the target because they feel sorry for him. And the last thing the target should want is someone’s pity. Yuck! Who in their right mind would want to settle for that?

But wait! It gets worse!

After a while, the pity that his (the target’s) so-called friends have for him may wear thin.

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Here are a few reasons why neediness is not only unattractive and humiliating but downright dangerous:

1. Any time you’re a target of bullying by everyone- the group of so-called friends who pretend to like you put themselves at risk of being made targets themselves. And they know it. In the minds of the bullies and others, they’re guilty by association. Instead of being an asset to the group, you become a liability!

2. The group is having to pretend to like having you around because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. But their real feelings about you will only seep out in ways that are not so obvious. It’ll be so subtle that you may not even know it’s happening. And you can bet that if you make the slightest mistake or they perceive the tiniest slight from you, the floodgates will open and their real feelings of dislike and hatred will come rushing out like a raging torrent. And they’ll look for any reason to make you go away even if they must treat you with blatant brutality.

3. Your so-called friends will never have your back. They’ll disappear at the first sign of trouble. When your bullies come calling, your fake friends will throw you under the bus, then get behind the wheel and run you over a few times. Understand that these people will not value you as a person.

disgust repulsion yuck

4. You’ll only draw people who are predators. Users and abusers are drawn to the needy like vultures to a carcass. They seek out people who are desperate to exploit their needs and weaknesses to get what they want from them. And once they’ve gotten all they want out of the person, they discard them like a dirty piece of toilet paper. You may not realize it, but you can do better than a bunch of scavengers!

Wouldn’t you rather be alone than to have friends like those? I wound hope you would.

Real courage and real self-worth sometimes require that you be alone for a while. But let me assure you that it won’t always be this way. Be patient and eventually, the right people will find you. It may not happen quickly, but it will happen. I guarantee it.

It happened for me and it will happen for you too!

Discover the strength of your Twitter account while facing an enraged cyberstalker. — Stop-Cyberstalkers, child-abusers and hate-speech

As you know, October is National Bullying Awareness Month in the USA.

This reblogged post from Bernard Grua is genius as it compares Twitter accounts of both cyber-stalker and victim. You should check this out. This post gives hope, and perhaps the last laugh, to cyber-stalking victims everywhere! Bless you, Bernard, for posting such valuable and needed information!

The unstoppable enormous amount of defamation, calumnious denunciations, call for violences, etc. a psychopathic rabid cyberstalker is able to produce on social media creates numerous damages in the life of any targeted regular citizen. However, volume, repeated propaganda and perversion are not the only keys of success on Twitter. Don’t give up. If you focus on quality and relevance, you may have some fundamental strengths which could make your position more comfortable than you believe.

via Discover the strength of your Twitter account while facing an enraged cyberstalker. — Stop-Cyberstalkers, child-abusers and hate-speech