sowing discord Archives

‘Want to know about instigation and how bullies manage to get you into altercations with other people? Here are the slick ways they do it and how you can respond with strength.

If there’s one thing bullies are good at, it’s sowing discord between you and others to cause trouble and make it hard for you to make friends and get along with others. Moreover, they do it so stealthily that others don’t notice them doing it.

Therefore, in this post, you will learn the sneaky ways bullies use instigation to get others pissed at you and how you can subtly call it out and respond to it with power.

Once you learn all this crucial information, you will better protect yourself against their wily tricks. Moreover, you’ll save yourself many broken friendships and social hassles.

Instigation

This type of baiting is indirect and extremely cowardly. In other words, these types of bullies don’t have the guts to be direct or the stomach to get their hands dirty. Or, they just don’t care what they do or if others notice because they have ways of insulating themselves from any responsibility.

Therefore, they do their bullying by instigating a conflict between you and another individual. They then stand back, at a safe distance, and watch from afar.

As they watch, they enjoy seeing you get humiliated by someone else.

Moreover, the individual these bullies pit against you probably won’t be the type of person who bullies anyone. In fact, they’ll likely be someone who doesn’t even have a history of conflicts with you.

The person they pit against you will most likely be a stranger, an acquaintance, friend, teacher, or supervisor. Understand that your bullies will do this to divide and conquer.

Also, they do it to break up your friendships, put you on everyone else’s bad side, and ultimately alienate you from everyone.

Baiting

Divide and Conquer

Here’s a list of several reasons bullies bait you using instigation:

To create a situation where they can gleefully watch as someone else reams you out.
For the purpose of turning others against you.
To create drama and entertainment
They want to parade you in front of an audience
To distract attention from their own evil deeds. In other words, if people are too busy fighting each other and others are too busy watching and getting their kicks, they’re too occupied to pay attention to what your bullies are doing.
To isolate you by making you look like the bad guy. The more people the bullies can turn against you, the worse you look, and the less power you have.

Often, when you’re a target of bullying by instigation, the person or people your bullies have pitted against you will start their sentences off as:

“Hey! I heard you’re trying to get with my boyfriend!”
“Somebody told me that you did…”
“I heard you told so-and-so such and such!”
“Somebody told me you’re talking smack about me behind me back! How about having the guts to say it to my face!”

Did you notice the first two to three words in each of the bulleted sentences?

Here are your First Clues of baiting by instigation

If you’re a target of bullying and someone has instigated a conflict between you and someone you don’t usually have trouble with, the first words out of your accuser’s mouth will be,

“I heard…”,
“Somebody told me…”
“It’s going around that…”
or
“It was brought to my attention…”

Those first few little words are your first clues of bullying by instigation, and that one or more of your bullies is trying to pit these people against you.

The Correct Way to Respond

Therefore, if you’re a target of bullying and you’re ever in a situation like this, here are a few comebacks you can’t make to the accuser:

Laugh at the accuser and say one of these,

“Really? You ‘heard,’? You’re so gullible you’ll believe anything, won’t you?”
“Wow! And you believed that? Boy, are you a moron!”
“Gee, you’ll fall for anything, won’t you!”

Challenge your accuser’s intelligence, then walk away laughing. Your accuser will be stunned, and your bullies, who are surely watching from afar, will be sorely disappointed.

How I wish I were this quick in school. However, as an adult, I was better able to defuse it by the above counter statements.

Always imply that your accuser is a fool for believing the lies, and I guarantee that the person will back down. Moreover, the bullies will think twice about trying to sow discord a second time.

It’s what worked for me.

There are many ways in which bullies instigate and bait others to participate in the bullying unwillingly.

Here are a few examples of instigation baiting strategies:

The Secret Admirer Bait

Your bullies will use this to bait someone to insult and humiliate you. And they’ll usually do it when there’s a big crowd of people around to see it.

Here’s how it goes:

Your bullies and a few classmates or coworkers will see you either in the halls on the parking lot where large crowds of people may gather in between classes or during break. You’ll be nearby and within earshot.

If you happen to be a female, the bullies will point to a nearby male and say,

“Hey, (your name)! John said he was madly in love with you!”
John will then get on the defensive and say,
“Oh, hell, no! I don’t like that ugly thing!” or, “That whore? No freakin’ way!”

Therefore, by doing this, your bullies slyly bait John into a knee-jerk reaction that includes insulting and humiliating you. They then achieve gratification by seeing John diss and humiliate you. And the icing on the cake is that he did it loudly, in front of an audience.

The secret admirer bait is mostly used in middle and high school. However, immature adults also use it against victims at work.

Instigation:

The Invitation bait

In this situation, the bullies will, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, become chummy with you. They’ll pretend to have a change of heart. Therefore, you must understand that they do this to bring down your defenses and win your trust.

Once they’ve won your trust, the bullies will invite you to a birthday party, cookout, sleepover, or kegger. And, once they lure you there, they will then either set you up for a physical attack, or for humiliation.

Furthermore, they may even encourage you to drink alcohol or do drugs. Then, once they get you drunk or high, they may manipulate you into some compromising situations. Both school-aged and adult bullies use this little tactic.

Knowledge is power

Here are the signs you need to look for.

1. Understand that no one ever becomes true friends overnight. Therefore, if someone who has bullied you suddenly starts to buddy up to you, and it seems to have come out of nowhere, you must see it for what it is. A red flag!

Moreover, you should steer clear! You can be sure that this creep is up to no good.

2. Also, if bullies are trying to bait you into anything, they will lay the flattery on thick! They’ll overdo the pleasantries. Moreover, it will sound so sickeningly sweet, you’ll want to grab a barf bag.

You’ll know it’s fake if you’re paying attention.

Instigation:

Here’s how you shut these creeps down.

However, be forewarned. Bullies are very convincing. Therefore, if you’re young and still in school, you’re likely to overlook the yuck if you aren’t careful.

So don’t fall for it! Don’t go anywhere with those people. Because once you’re alone with them, you’re at their mercy!

3. The secret admirer bait is a little harder to avoid. Why? Because the bullies aren’t baiting you. They’re baiting someone else to insult you.

Therefore, If you’re a victim of school or workplace bullying and your bullies use the secret admirer bait. They’re likely to trick someone into humiliating you.

If this happens, deal out a good burn for the dummy who allowed themselves to be used by your bullies.

For example, you can say:

“No chance. I could never be that desperate, and you could never be that lucky.”

Then keep walking.

Your witty comeback will sting the poor sucker who took the bully’s bait and tried to insult you. But hey! Better them than you. Right?

It’s always best to have a few good burns lined up and filed away, just in case someone decides to get cute. So, be prepared. Always find a good way to defend yourself.