Thursday, February 12, 2015

Bully

So, as my readers may or may not know, I'm an adult. I've been an adult for many years now. However, yesterday I was the target of a bully. That's right, someone acted poorly toward me and said something that made me very uncomfortable. This person was mean to me and I didn't even know them. I made a comment on a post on facebook about a picture of a building that was posted by a preservation society. I thought it was a cool looking building and I thought that if it could be preserved by the company that began in that location and has grown to a major cooperation, it should be saved by them. That was all. I didn't make any political announcements, I didn't say anything controversial. I simply said I thought it was a cool looking building and as a fan of pop culture, historical archeology, and buildings in general there wasn't anything wrong with my saying it. Someone however decided to judge me on this one post. They have no idea who I am, what I stand for, if I'm intellectual, if I'm a nice person. They don't know me at all. But this person had the nerve to post after my post, "You are an idiot." I saw that and was deeply offended. How dare they pass this judgment on me? So, I wrote back, "That was uncalled for, untrue and mean. Why would you act like a bully?" But then I deleted the whole thread. And I know why I deleted it. I didn't want to provoke. I didn't want to "get into it" with someone that I didn't even know on a page that wasn't mine. I didn't want to stoop to this person's level, but now I'm wondering if this means that the bully won? Should I have stood up for myself? Should I have called them out for being a bully? If this little incident is bothering me so much, imagine how it feels when it happens to a child, a teenager, anyone else. We are taught to remember that people that bully are often hurting inside, confused, angry with the world and "acting out" but I looked at this person's page. This was another adult. Shouldn't they have known better? How is the world going to get any better if people can't just be nice to one another and respect each other's opinions. You don't have to agree with me that a building should be preserved but you certainly do have to be nice to me!