‘Want to know all about the bully’s perspective and what they really want to say to you? Here you’ll get a peak inside the minds of bullies, especially when you stand up to them.
Bullies have a Divine Right of Kings attitude toward their victims. They feel that they are entitled to abuse them and that their targets don’t have the right to defend themselves. In other words, bullies expect their victims to just shut up, stand still, and take their abuse with a smile, then ask for seconds.
Therefore, in this post, you will learn exactly what a bully’s perspective is and what they expect from you.
One you learn all about these attitudes and expectations, you will be compelled to double down in protecting yourself from bullies. Moreover, you’ll finally know what bullies are thinking.
This post is all about a bully’s perspective and the importance of standing up to your bullies.
A Bully’s Perspective
If you’re a victim of bullying, Here is what your bullies want to say to you.
We warned you! We warned you not to rock the boat. ‘Told you not to make waves. We made it clear that your place was beneath us. Therefore, you should take our abuse without question and without refusing.
And we shouldn’t have to spell that out for you!
Nevertheless, what did you do? You just had to push it! ‘Had to get uppity! You just had to challenge our authority!
So, ‘you want to make trouble? ‘You want to diss us? ‘Grow some spine and step up to us?
Now, because of you, we risk the threat of everyone else challenging our power!
Therefore, what would you do if someone on a lower level than you challenged you? What would you do if some nobody humiliated you and made you look like a punk in front of everybody?
Yeah, yeah! People may advise us to just “let it go” or “overlook it!” However, you’ve made thhis personal and there’s no coming back from it!
Do you really think you won any respect by clapping back at us? Uh-uh! Nope! What you did was start a war!
So, don’t talk to us about right or wrong! Don’t speak to us about fairness! Because right and wrong, just don’t come into it! And fairness is a fairytale for babies!
We’re going to teach you that there’s a social order in this place! And there’s a certain way we do things around here!
You’ve forgotten who you are. We must teach you that some people matter, and some don’t! You also need to learn that some people can, and some can’t!
A Bully’s Perspective:
When you stand up to us, you take away our power over you.
Don’t say a word because you’d feel the same way we do! You’d think,
“This loser doesn’t know his place! He’s forgotten who he is! He has grown too big for his britches and too smart for his own good! He doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone!”
“He’s gotten too cocky, too sure of himself, too bold and too arrogant! In short, he’s threatened our positions at the top of the social totem pole! And threats must be contained!”
During the Medieval period, anyone who disrespected any member of a royal family would be dragged off to the guillotine. And the remaining peasants would know that they would be next if they even mentioned the troublemaker’s name.
The “Divine Right of Kings” rule still stands today, in this school, in this workplace, in this community, in this world.
People in our positions are allowed to beat our chests and throw our weight around freely and with impunity. It’s okay for us to abuse anyone we deem unworthy of humane treatment. If you were any one of us, you’d think,
A Bully’s Perspective:
we’re afraid that if you stand up for yourself, you just might start a trend!
“But (target’s name)! Who the hell does that freak think he is! He opened his smart mouth and dissed us! Now all the losers may rise up and demand their rights to equal treatment!
What? Allowing them to get through a single day without getting their brains beat in isn’t enough? Shoot! They should be down on their knees, thanking us for not making things worse for them!”
“Losers like him (the target) report you to the principal and get you in trouble! Or they get the big boss involved!
They join anti-bullying groups and get involved in anti-bullying programs at school! Or they join workplace safety groups!”
“Shyeah! Like that’s gonna help them any! And don’t EVEN get me started on those groups! They’re always looking for publicity!”
“They even write journals, publish books, and post on their blogs! They call you and your friends out on things you’d rather people inside or outside town not find out!”
“So, with the bullying awareness movement (Ugh! What a joke!) that’s sweeping the globe, it’s harder for us to insulate ourselves from accountability!
And since virtually everyone has a smartphone with a camera, how can we punish our target without further exposure and the risk of punishment and ruination of our prospects?
How can we reinforce our dominance over this creep, and make him cave in and bow down to us? How do we make our target submit?
A Bully’s Perspective:
we Will Fight Ferociously to keep our power.
We make the little rebel’s life a living hell and use him as an example to the rest of our subjects. However, we can’t make it too visible. We must be cunning and covert! Our attacks must be deniable.
We’ll do this to teach this punk a lesson show him who’s boss while letting the other schoolmates know that this will happen to them if they dare get out of their places. You call it tit-for-tat, we call it frontier justice.
Maybe you think that we don’t know we’re bullies. Well…you poor, clueless thing, you! Newsflash! We know we’re bullies and we’re proud of it. ‘Wanna know why?
Because bullies rule!
Why? Because it’s cool to be cruel! Sorry. That’s reality and you can either deal with it or continue to be a hero and get treated worse!
The higher up on the social hierarchy we are, the more brazen and brutal we are. And when you threaten our power, the more desperate we are.
Therefore, the harder we’ll fight to keep the popularity, attention, favor, the having our butts kissed, and the social status we enjoy.
You need to realize that the positions we hold and the friends and followers we have give us special treatment. We get rewards, and liberties that nobody else can get.
1. we will try to hold you down.
And the power we have is too delicious to give up. Outside of our group, our high social status, and this town, we have nothing!
So, if this little pipsqueak thinks he’s going to man up and punk us out in front everyone, then we’re going to give him both barrels!
In this power struggle, we have an arsenal of power, reputation, connections, and favor. And we’ll use them all to bury him!
It takes a long time to isolate a target. But we have the patience of Job.
And while we wait for the outcome, we’ll get our kicks out of watching him suffer! He thinks he can win friends and respect?
He thinks he’s equal to us? Not in this lifetime! We decide who talks to who, who makes friends and when they do.
And we can kill any opportunity to make friends, get a date, have a promotion, and even turn the teachers, coaches, supervisors… any staff member against him if we so desire.
A Bully’s Perspective:
we Thrive on Silencing you.
We can shut him up by ridiculing him every time he speaks, even if he’s right. And if he gets in kind of praise or recognition from others, it’ll only further piss us off.
Then, we’ll turn up the heat on his butt!
We’ll shame him by calling him a nerd or a bookworm in school. We’ll accuse him of being an arrogant know-it-all at work! Finally, by the time we’re through with him, he’ll be too afraid to open his smart mouth!
We can exclude him from company meetings, school clubs, ballgames, school dances, proms, and other functions.
We’ll control his emotions. He won’t get any enjoyment in life unless we say so. We can make sure he does nowhere but down. Then, we’ll leave him to rot in his own loneliness and misery. We’ll make sure he’s stuck on the bottom of the pecking order and never moves up.
As a result, we’ll dim his shine, strip him of any confidence, change his smug attitude, and make him loathe himself! We’ll make him trash!
He crossed us- that makes him a leper as far as anyone else is concerned. Does he really think anyone will stand by him?
Sure, others may hate us because they can’t be us, but they fear us! They may talk smack about how they’d stand up to us, but talk’s cheap.
A Bully’s Perspective:
2. We isolate you.
Oh, yeah! The other folks talk the talk. But we know that when the time comes to walk the walk, they’ll only tuck their tails between their legs and run.
Moreover, they’ll leave the little wuss to fend for himself. They’ll know better than to piss us off because they know that we have the power to make their lives just as hard as we made his (the target’s).
Nobody wants to be next on our hit list, and we don’t blame them! It isn’t their problem, and they don’t want to end up down in the basement either.
So, what’s he going to do about it? If he does manage to scrounge up a few friends, they’ll be the few no-counts who are just as desperate as he is.
Also, they’ll hang with him only because they have no other options themselves. This gives us another juicy idea! Hmmm… Perhaps if we pretend to like and accept those other losers, they’ll throw his sorry butt under the bus too! Then what friends will he have?
How do you think we got to where we are? It’s because we’re the most knowledgeable of human nature.
Moreover, human nature dictates that, just as there are people who fight to be on top, there are also those who fight just as hard to stay off the bottom.
Oh, the other losers may feel sorry for the target, but they need us to leave them alone. They expect us not to make them bigger laughing stocks than they already are.
Therefore, the few friends he has will know better than to support him. Anyone would be a fool to have a dog in this fight!
A Bully’s Perspective:
we love dominance and power.
Around here, we are royalty! We’re the top dogs. If anyone else wants to be safe, they need our permission.
Therefore, the target’s friends don’t want us to make things any harder on them. And they know that if at any time some blockhead pisses us off, we take no prisoners!
So, even his friends will pretend it isn’t happening. Why? Because they know better than to have his back.
And if he shoots his mouth off to them or anyone else about any of us, many of them will report back to us for these reasons:
- To get on our good side
- In hopes that we’ll accept them
- To stay off our hate-radar
And if we grill the target’s friends with questions about him, they’ll tell us anything they think we want to hear. This is good because they more than likely know all his deepest, darkest secrets!
Maybe these friends will know we’re only using them to get the deets from them. Then again, maybe they won’t, but either way, it won’t matter. The only thing that will matter to them is keeping us satisfied, and keeping their butts off our shit list.
Do you see where we’re going with this? The fix is in. If the target continues to push back against us, others will avoid him to keep from arousing our wrath.
And no matter how strong he thinks he is, he won’t be able to handle that for very long.
A Bully’s Perspective:
we will bombard you with attacks to wear you down.
Here are more ways we assert and reinforce control over targets who step out of line.
3. We spread rumors and lies about you because we know it works.
That’s right! We’ll demonize him. And he won’t even know about it until it’s too late and enough people are itching to take him apart.
We’ll sow discord between him and everyone else. Hell! Even the teachers or supervisors! We’ll make him public enemy number one!
Get this straight. All we have to do to demonize our target is to throw around a few offhand remarks and loaded words.
‘You see? We bullies been best friends since kindergarten, and some of us since we were babies. We are a family and we keep each other’s darkest secrets and fiercely protect each other. In other words, we cover each other’s butts.
Our families know each other, and we have connections to quite a few city officials and local big shots. Everyone knows us and they love us- very much!
We’re in cahoots with the right people and they tell us everything.
Nothing is private. Not in this town. This is our kingdom. And it’s crawling with lackeys, suck-ups, and wannabes. These people straddle the fence and they’re the ones you’d l least expect.
And he messed with one of us, so he messed with all of us!
4. A Bully’s Perspective:
we make you do degrading things with the promise of acceptance.
By this time, we’ll have him so rejected, alone and alienated that he’ll sell his soul to the devil just to get a crumb of acceptance. So, why not give him something to strive toward?
Make him do something to embarrass himself. And trust us, we’re creative!
We’ll think of something so humiliating and degrading! Setting him up to look pathetic is going to be so fun!
Moreover, we’ll film it for the entire free world to see. And he’ll never be able to get away from it.
We’ll also set him up to get in trouble with authority by baiting him into a few fights. We’ll get in his face. One of us might even throw the first punch and force him to hit back.
Then, we’ve got him. We’ll all band together and say he started it, cook up a good story, and he’ll be the one blamed.
And the icing on the cake is that after everyone finishes blaming and punishing this loser, they’ll give us sympathy for being victimized by such a monster.
That’s just life! It’s the mixed up world we live in. Some matter and some don’t. And if a target tries to defend himself, others will only accuse him of being defensive, a whiner, or mentally imbalanced.
But those rules don’t apply to us because we can do no wrong. Remember. We’re royals. And the double-standards we held our target to are beneficial to us.
Don’t be surprised and don’t catch an attitude. You’d do the same thing if you were one of us.
5. A Bully’s Perspective:
We fantasize about you transferring out or, even better, killing yourself.
Seriously, we do. But then again, we really don’t want that because, if he did either one, all the fun would end and it would be game over.
We need our target to stick around so that we can continue getting our jollies and free entertainment.
We prefer to make things worse on our target slowly and gradually, dragging it out for as long as possible. We’ll enjoy watching him withdraw from everyone and lose his appetite. Smiling as he gets sick, and shakes from nervousness, we won’t take our eyes off him.
And we know he will snap sooner or later.
Get this straight! We’re not completely clueless. We learned the laws of human nature early. How do you think we got so darned popular with kids and adults alike?
And how do you think we rose to the top of the social totem pole? We knew the rules of the social game long before most people knew how to use the bathroom by themselves!
We also know that no one can keep that kind of pressure stuffed down inside forever. It’s impossible. Eventually, the target will explode.
It always works better that way. And when he does blow up, we can only hope he does it in front of an audience.
6. A Bully’s perspective:
We would love nothing more than to beat the ever-loving crap out of you but we don’t want to risk getting caught.
We’re already building a case against the target. We can pick out small incidents, take them out of context, and spin them to make it bigger. Also, we can craft a pattern out of them and make it look like evidence that is so damning.
Sure. Like, love and attractiveness are all subjective, but the system and social dynamic are rigged in our favor.
We’re too smart to do something so obvious and we don’t want to get our hands dirty. We’d much rather psychologically pick the creep apart in front of everyone and use his words against him.
His intentions don’t matter. A screw-up is a screw-up and we’ll stick it to him. We’ll do it under the guise of friendly advice, the stealthier way to attack.
7. we will Pit what friends you have against you.
If we can’t turn his friends against him any other way, we’ll attack them too. We’ll accuse his friend of being in on the target’s little rebellion.
Why should we do the dirty work ourselves when we have peer pressure on our side?
His friends will blame him for dragging them into it and causing them to become targets. They won’t care to hear any explanations or justifications.
They’ll just want their lives back and they’ll ostracize and gang up on him to make that happen. Cause and effect is such a beautiful thing! Why not use it to your advantage?
8. A Bully’s Perspective:
We Send henchmen to commit our violence for us.
As much as we’d love to beat the target’s brains out with our bare hands, we’re too smart to get blood on ourselves. In fact, we won’t even be there.
Therefore, if the above tactics don’t work, we’ll just send a few roughnecks to kick his ass for us. And why not? We’re the kings and queens around here.
Seasoned Bullies Don’t Like to get their hands dirty.
Therefore, all we have to do is offer the right incentives and we can get anybody to do anything we want them to do.
Even better, we’ll get the toughest guy with the worst reputation and put a bug in his ear. We’ll make him think that the target is trying to put the moves on his girl. Then we won’t have to offer him anything in return.
It won’t matter what the truth is or whether the target even knows the girl. Because we have all the power, connections and trust, just our names and our word is golden.
The target gets his head kicked in and gets a ride in an ambulance. We fade into the woodwork. And if things get too hairy, we just let the tough guy take the fall!
And if tough-guy tells the cops that we put him up to it, do you think they’ll believe him?
Brilliant, huh?
This post is all about the bully’s perspective to give you a peek into their minds.
Related posts you’ll enjoy:
1. How to Spot a Bully: 13 Must-Know Body-Language Examples
2. Why do Schools Ignore Bullying? 7 Reasons Schools Do Nothing
3. Secrets Bullies Hope You Never Find Out: 11 Must-Know Facts about Bullies
4. Non Verbal Bullying: Hostile Body Language Head to Toe
5. Why do Bullies Bully? 7 Reasons They Won’t Leave You Alone
You’ve said it all so eloquently Cherie. This is all so true.
Thank you so much, Michael!