How does bullying affect the victim’s friendships? It’s a question that needs answering in great detail.
Bullying not only impacts the victim’s health, but also their friendships and social life.
In this post, you will have the exact answers to the question, “How does bullying affect the victim’s friendships?” Moreover, we will go over all the impacts in detail, discussing the hows and why’s of it.
Once you learn these social ramifications, you will be more motivated to help your bullied loved one. Or, if you’re the victim, you will be compelled to take powerful steps to protect yourself.
This post gives all the answers to the burning question, “How does bullying affect the victim’s friendships?” Moreover, we discuss how you can reverse the social damages bullying causes you if you’re a victim.
How does bullying affect the victim’s relationships?
1. Your Friends May Endure Social Pressure
They may be afraid that your bullies may bully them too.
Your friends may endure social pressure to turn on you. Understand that bullies go after your friends to make them afraid of being seen with you. Why? Because your bullies’ intentions is to isolate you from everyone else.
No one wants to be bullied, and that includes your friends. Therefore, when your bullies bully them too, you then become a liability to them. And once they see you as the cause to their social suffering and a threat to their social position, it’s not a question of if but when they turn on you.
“But what would the bullies have to gain by isolating me?” You may ask.
By isolating you, they make you more vulnerable to their abuse. ‘You see? Having friends means having support. In other words, friends are a line of defense and bullies know this.
Therefore, they manipulate your friends to turn them against you to strip you of any support (or defenses) you may have.
They do this because, without friends to support and defend you, your bullies can bully you freely and without fear of anyone retaliating or holding them accountable.
In other words, when there isn’t the possibility of anyone helping you, bullies have full and complete carte blanche to attack you anytime they feel like it.
2. How does bullying affect the victim’s friendships?
Your Friends May be Tempted by the Prospect of Social Status.
It’s human nature to want social status. We all want it. However, decent people know that it isn’t the end all be all.
With that said, your friends may decide that they want to climb the social ladder more than they want to continue associating with you. Therefore, they cease contact with you.
But, realize that these people never were your friends. If they were, they never wouldn’t dropped you in the first place.
You don’t lose friends, you lose frauds.
3. Your Friends Allow Your Bullies to Use Them to Get Information on You.
First, let me say this. If your friends allow your bullies to use them to get personal information and deep secrets about you and your life, then they aren’t friends at all. What they are, is a bunch of two-faced sellouts!
Additionally, these types of individuals are than enemies because, with enemies, you know exactly where you stand. Therefore, you know it’s best to keep your distance from them. In other words, you know to keep these people out of your life.
Not so with traitors. A traitor will be sneaky, and they’ll make it a point to stick close to you so that they can continue to get juicy information about your life, with which to report back to your bullies.
So, what are ways bullies use your so-called friends to bait you?
1. How Does Bullying Affect the Victim’s Friendships?
Your Bullies Have Your Friends ask you personal questions.
Your (fake)friends won’t seem nosy when they ask you. They’ll come under the pretense of deep concern for your well-being. They’ll have you fooled, thinking they really care about you when they’re only trying to gather your private details.
2. They have them stick extra close to you.
Your so-called friends will watch you closely and scrutinize everything you say and do. Also, they’ll try to find out who you associate with besides them.
These people will want to know who your family members are, where you live, everything. Therefore, beware when they seem to latch onto you like a tick to a dog.
3. They have them go through your belongings when you aren’t around.
Oh, yes! Your fake friends will go through your purse. Moreover, they’ll go through your notebook to see what you’re writing in it, and they’ll snoop through your email.
For example, two of your friends are visiting you at home. You’re all sitting in your living room and having coffee. You suddenly have to go to the bathroom and you excuse yourself, telling them you’ll be right back.
Then, one of them gets up and noses through your mail while the other keeps an eye out for you.
Another example would be that they may even swing by the night before trash pick-up day and grab your trash after you set it out by the curb. They will then take it somewhere safe and snoop through it.
4. How Does Bullying Affect the Victim’s Friendships?
Your bullies have your friends hawk your social media profiles and pages.
Sadly, many people post things on social media they really shouldn’t. Or they post things that are too easily taken out of context.
For example, in the early days of Facebook, I’ll admit that I posted a complaint from time to time. These were posts about bad service, idiot drivers, and ignorant people (without name-dropping, of course).
Although I didn’t post anything personal, it still wasn’t good policy. Understand that these are posts that can very easily be taken out of context, so it’s probably better to keep any complaints private.
Why are your Friends the first people bullies approach?
It’s no secret that many bullies are brazen. Therefore, they’ll have the audacity to go to your friends to get secrets about you because they don’t fear that your friends will tell them to piss off.
And in most cases they won’t.
It’s especially painful when those you thought were friends suddenly go turncoat. In other words, it’s not the bullies who hurt you the most. It’s the betrayal from friends and the silence of bystanders.
Therefore, understand that during a smear campaign, your friends will be at the top of your bullies’ list of people they wish to win over to their side.
Here’s why.
1. How does bullying affect the victim’s friendships?
Bullies know that if they can get the people you care about and trust the most to turn against you, they’ll be able to strike a devastating blow!
Again, having bullies, total strangers and people you don’t care much about turn against you is painful.. However, it’s much easier to take than if it’s someone you care about.
Nothing hurts worse than having the people you love most and think highly of turn against you.
2. By persuading your most cherished friends to turn against you, your bullies take away much needed social support.
In other words, if they can isolate you from your friends, bullies know that they can make you more vulnerable. Moreover, they know that you’re likely to become stressed and your performance and activities will take a hit.
This will make it much easier for them to bully you.
3. Your friends Likely know the most intimate details about you and your life.
Bullies know that if they can get your friends to turn against you, then they will have complete access to the most private knowledge about you.
In other words, your friends will most likely know about your deepest, darkest secrets and weaknesses.
Moreover, they may also be privy to about any future plans you’re making. and anything you may have said about the bullies.
Bullies can easily exploit, even weaponize these kinds of information.
4. How Does Bullying Affect The Victim’s Friendships.
there’s a strong chance that if Friends turn against you, bystanders will too.
People will figure that if your own friends turn against you, then damn! You must really have it coming! You must have done something pretty lowdown and dirty!
They may wonder if you slept with your best friend’s boyfriend or spouse. Maybe you stole from a friend. Maybe you emotionally abused their child.
When others see that your own friends have turned against you, all these above possible reasons immediately come to mind. That’s the worst thing about being hung out to dry.
5. associating with you may cause your friends’ positions on the social scene to weaken. Therefore, they put themselves at risk of becoming the next target.
Why, because people consider those who are bullied as unattractive and therefore, go out of their way to avoid forming friendships with them.
So, if your own friends turn against you, why would anyone else be fool enough to have anything to do with you?
Here’s what you should do:
Whatever you do, don’t be nice about it!
If nothing else, realize this. Anyone who claims to be a friend and stabs you in the back has no place in your life. Moreover, if you find out they’ve betrayed you, it’s time to ditch and switch to new friends.
Also, it’s best to make friends outside the bullying environment. Then you can show these new friends the awesome you that you can’t show in the environment you’re bullied in.
When you drop these people, you might be friendless for a while. However, think about this.
Did you have any friends in the first place while your fake friends were betraying you? Wouldn’t you rather be alone than to deal with fakers who only pretend to be for you when they’re really siding with the enemy?
Therefore, ditch your fake friends, then wait for better people to find you. I promise you that they will eventually.
This post provided all the answers to the question, “How does Bullying affect the victim’s friendships” so that you’ll know what to expect out of many of your friends when bullies bully you and what you can do to retake your self-respect.
Related posts you’ll enjoy:
1. Choose Your Friends Wisely: 9 Criteria to Judge by
2. How to Spot Fake Friends: 7 Proven Tricks to Instantly Out Them
3. Fake Friends: 13 Surefire Signs They Don’t Like You for You
4. How to Spot Fake Friends: 7 Proven Tricks to Instantly Out Them
